# Is Stock Wasteful?



## Alotsa (Sep 24, 2007)

Me and a household member have this on going debate weather or not stock is wasteful.

 I love making soup and have thus done a lot of research into stock making and i find that in the culinary world it is agreed that a lot of bones and meat is used for a relatively small amount of water and most recipes simply tell you to discard the left over meat and veggies, for example one of my favorite stocks consists of 2lb of chicken wings for 6 cups of water, the result is a flavourful gelatinous stock base.
       Basically id like to know how much nutrients is absorbed into the water? and if tossing the over cooked leftovers is really a big waste or not (aside from the fiber  which cant really be helped).
 I, relatively speaking, do not think this is a wasteful use of meat and vegges if the outcome is a very nutritious soup especially with something like 2lbs of chicken wings,something that is likely to be wasted at the supermarket anyway,  however with out knowing exactly how much nutrients is lost i cant say for sure.
If any one has any thoughts or incite about this subject id really like some feedback Ive tried to look on the Internet for some sort of study but failed.    Thanks.


----------



## keltin (Sep 24, 2007)

Nutrients that are water soluble will leech into the water, but there is much debate as to whether they are available for consumption. That is, does the water get infused with leeched nutrients making it “super water”? I don’t know for sure.

Aside from that, the idea of stock is to utilize every bit of the item. In veggies, you prep and serve the tender pieces of the vegetable for dinner, and save the harder roots and stems for stock. These piece have the same (and more intense) flavor but are too hard for a served dish, thus great stock material.

Bones are a fantastic piece of stock material because of the little bits of clinging fat and the marrow in the bones. The meat itself doesn’t contribute a whole lot to the stock, but instead it is the fat, blood, marrow, etc. 

IMHO, boiling chicken wings whole for stock is wasteful when you could simply have chicken wings and then use the leftover bones (and marrow) for stock (not to mention the uncooked wing tips), or butcher your own chicken and use the backbone and innards for stock.

For shellfish stock, you save the discarded shrimp husks and crab shell.

For veggies, the stems and left over pieces.

Stocks are typically made from the inedible pieces of a thing thus allowing you to get the MOST from that which you have. To use a perfectly viable piece of meat (wing, rib, etc) is rather wasteful for a stock since most of a stock’s flavor comes from the harder, inedible pieces such as stems and bone marrow.


----------



## Katie H (Sep 24, 2007)

I don't have  the answer to your  question about nutrition of loss of same, Alotsa.   However, when I make chicken stock, I use the cut-off bits of chicken from my leg/thigh portions, cast-offs from cutting up a whole chicken, etc.  I save these in the freezer until I have enough to make stock.

After I make my stock and strain out the veggies, the veggies (minus the onions) go to my outside kitties for their food.  I also save the solidified fat for their food, too, so nothing goes to waste when I make stock.


----------



## Alotsa (Sep 24, 2007)

Keltin, i agree with everything you said stock is great for making the most of your food. Let me just say I'm not one to waste a perfectly good backbone or shells from shrimp when i cook these things, I also try to either eat the veggies and meat or feed it to the dog if i can so im atleast mindfull of waste. However i think the argument can be made that meat does add something to the flavour party that is stock, as Jean-Georges Vongerichten said "The best stock tastes of meat, not bones. shorter cooking time, with lots of meat and not many bones produces the best stock."


----------



## keltin (Sep 24, 2007)

Alotsa said:


> Keltin, i agree with everything you said stock is great for making the most of your food. Let me just say I'm not one to waste a perfectly good backbone or shells from shrimp when i cook these things, I also try to either eat the veggies and meat or feed it to the dog if i can so im atleast mindfull of waste. However i think the argument can be made that meat does add something to the flavour party that is stock, as Jean-Georges Vongerichten said "The best stock tastes of meat, not bones."


 
I can agree with that, but most often the meat is contributing rendered fat to the mix. This can be accomplished by trimming your own meat, saving the fat and bones for marrow, saving rendered fat, etc, thus never requiring you to cook servable meat for a stock.  

I’m not saying it’s wrong to cook servable meat for stock….not at all. It’s often much, much quicker. But when it comes to the mechanics of cooking, only the rendered fat and blood proteins offer much to a stock, so you can possibly be wasting good meat if you try to make stock from it.


----------



## David Cottrell (Sep 24, 2007)

*Stock Waste*



Alotsa said:


> Keltin, i agree with everything you said stock is great for making the most of your food. Let me just say I'm not one to waste a perfectly good backbone or shells from shrimp when i cook these things. However i think the argument can be made that meat does add something to the flavour party that is stock, as Jean-Georges Vongerichten said "The best stock tastes of meat, not bones."


 
I'm like the rest of you - I don't like to waste food. It was the way I was brought up - clean your plate!  

What I do is to use the meat that I use in making stock in a salad - it's perfectly good protein and in a salad can be made tasty the way all salads are so I don't waste. For chicken by all means use a carcass that has been pretty well stripped, nothing wrong with a turkey carcass. Use plenty of beef bones. I really like borsch with a good rich meat broth but I don't waste! 

As for the onion, carrots, parsnip, parsley root - well they might be wasted. But some of the parsnip and parsley root will probably stay with the borsch. I really don't make vegetable stock.


----------



## kitchenelf (Sep 24, 2007)

I'm another one that can't help with the nutrient side of it but if you're gonna make stock make it so it tastes good.  A few chicken wings aren't wasteful.  I roast mine first though.  I roast bones for beef stock too.

I don't consider throwing away the veggies when done making stock wasteful either - there's really nothing left to them.  I have been known to make a meal out of them though in a pinch - little salt and pepper so they have some flavor tossed with a few egg noodles.  It might not be nutritious but it certainly takes up stomach space!  

If the other person in your household thinks using the chicken wings is wasteful then take off the "leg" part and eat those.  Just use the other two parts for the stock.


----------



## keltin (Sep 24, 2007)

kitchenelf said:


> I'm another one that can't help with the nutrient side of it but if you're gonna make stock make it so it tastes good. A few chicken wings aren't wasteful. I roast mine first though. I roast bones for beef stock too.
> 
> I don't consider throwing away the veggies when done making stock wasteful either - there's really nothing left to them. I have been known to make a meal out of them though in a pinch - little salt and pepper so they have some flavor tossed with a few egg noodles. It might not be nutritious but it certainly takes up stomach space!
> 
> If the other person in your household thinks using the chicken wings is wasteful then take off the "leg" part and eat those. Just use the other two parts for the stock.


 
Odd thing is, my favorite part on the wing is the “middle” part with the two bones. And I love the “tips” broiled with some garlic. Crunchy tips are a great treat for me (crunchy like fries!). I’m not a big fan of the “drumstick”, so if I was going to do it, I’d make stock of that!


----------



## Dave Hutchins (Sep 24, 2007)

For years I made 2 60 gallon pots of stock every Sunday. In one pot I browned the bones, addes 10 pounds of onion ends ond tops that was saved during the week and all of the carrot tops, celery butts. and then the morning Cook had a good stock for his soup, sauces and what ever he had to make, ocasionaly we would have to use whole onionms,and ETC ... kudos to Kate e for giving her CATS the left overs Cats forever
 Man can not know piece till he has a cat snugge up and purr in his or her ear Nirvana


----------



## kitchenelf (Sep 24, 2007)

keltin said:


> Odd thing is, my favorite part on the wing is the “middle” part with the two bones. And I love the “tips” broiled with some garlic. Crunchy tips are a great treat for me (crunchy like fries!). I’m not a big fan of the “drumstick”, so if I was going to do it, I’d make stock of that!



oh keltin - you and I could NOT eat chicken wings together!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I LOVE the part with the two bones and I get to eat EVERYONE's cruncy tip part because no one wants to mess with it - that's my favorite part!!!!!!!!!!!!  LOL

I absolutely do NOT like the leg part - I eat as few as possible.  I just suggested that so the person who had an issue might get some sort of a meal out of them 

You are indeed the only other person I know that eats that little crunchy part besides me and LOVES the part with the two bones - naw - it would be a nasty fight that may require wearing helmets and seatbelts if we ate wings together!


----------



## Claire (Sep 25, 2007)

I grew up using bones and veggies you normaly would throw away. I "squish" (for lack of a better word) the veggies through a seive, and I use bones from meat we've already eaten (gasp!). In other words, I use the turkey or chicken carcass. I do buy beef for stock, but I don't throw away the meat, I make stew from it. I don't throw away perfectly good food.

And yes, I, too, use chicken wings. They have a great gelatanous food going (I refrigerate, then skim the fat).


----------



## GotGarlic (Sep 25, 2007)

keltin said:


> Nutrients that are water soluble will leech into the water, but there is much debate as to whether they are available for consumption. That is, does the water get infused with leeched nutrients making it “super water”? I don’t know for sure.




Hey, Keltin. Just curious - why would water-soluble nutrients not be available for consumption (do you mean absorption?) in stock? Unless I'm mistaken, they're available in other foods, some more than others, but still absorbable, by a healthy body anyway.


----------



## keltin (Sep 25, 2007)

kitchenelf said:


> oh keltin - you and I could NOT eat chicken wings together!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVE the part with the two bones and I get to eat EVERYONE's cruncy tip part because no one wants to mess with it - that's my favorite part!!!!!!!!!!!! LOL
> 
> I absolutely do NOT like the leg part - I eat as few as possible. I just suggested that so the person who had an issue might get some sort of a meal out of them
> 
> You are indeed the only other person I know that eats that little crunchy part besides me and LOVES the part with the two bones - naw - it would be a nasty fight that may require wearing helmets and seatbelts if we ate wings together!


 
Oh wow! A kindred soul! I thought I was the only one! If we ever dine together, I'll make sure to have the steak!


----------



## keltin (Sep 25, 2007)

GotGarlic said:


> keltin said:
> 
> 
> > Nutrients that are water soluble will leech into the water, but there is much debate as to whether they are available for consumption. That is, does the water get infused with leeched nutrients making it “super water”? I don’t know for sure.
> ...


----------



## sattie (Sep 25, 2007)

I think making stock is a wonderful way to use 'discards'.  As has been mentioned in earlier posts, using stems of asparagus, broccoli, tomatoes, you name it.... I toss it all in a  big bag and freeze till I have enough to make stock.  Buy whole chickens and use the carcass/innards/scraps to make stock.  When carving roasts, save the bones and make stock.  I think stock is one of the best ways to utilize every last little bit!  Fresh herbs going bad?  Throw them in the freezer and add them to your next stock pot!


----------



## GB (Sep 25, 2007)

Is stock wasteful? No it is not. You are getting something out of those bones, veggies and meat. And the meat can be used too. Just leave it in long enough to cook then pull the meat out and you can use it for other uses, then you can continue to cook the veggies and bones until you have your stock.


----------



## Walt Bulander (Sep 25, 2007)

With chicken, I just roast the cut up chicken in a 400 degree oven for about 1 1/2 hours, pick out the meat, and make stock out of the bones. The meat gets frozen for chicken soup or a casserole.

In our area, you can often buy 10# packages of thighs and legs for under $4.

I don't bother roasting the veg. etc. Just put into the simmering stock.


----------



## DramaQueen (Sep 25, 2007)

*I too buy the 10 lb. packages of chicken thighs and legs.  My supermarket had them recently for 2.99 for 10 lbs.  I  put the whole 10 lbs. in a huge pot, add as many wing "tips" as I have saved over a few months, any bones that I take out of the chicken after roasting and chicken feet, yes, chicken feet from an Asian market, loaded with cartilage and bones, and all this  makes a very inexpensive, rich, intense chicken broth.  *


----------



## BreezyCooking (Sep 25, 2007)

If I were buying large packages of chicken wings, thighs, legs, etc. just to make stock & had no plans to use the resultant meat for anything else, than I guess my personal opinion would be that that's wasteful.  Only because I find that I can make unbelievably rich stocks using the chicken wing tips, backbones, & carcasses; leaving the better parts for worthwhile meals.

Unfortunately, DramaQueen's coup for 10 lbs. of chicken for only $2.99 isn't a nationwide tradition, & chicken can be fairly pricey these days since many folks began steering away from red meat.  While I've definitely found chicken parts on sale for $2.99 PER POUND, $2.99 for 10 pounds of chicken is not only unheard of around here, but frankly would make me rather suspect.  In that case, stock might very well be the best way to deal with that chicken.  : )


----------



## DramaQueen (Sep 25, 2007)

BreezyCooking said:


> If I were buying large packages of chicken wings, thighs, legs, etc. just to make stock & had no plans to use the resultant meat for anything else, than I guess my personal opinion would be that that's wasteful. Only because I find that I can make unbelievably rich stocks using the chicken wing tips, backbones, & carcasses; leaving the better parts for worthwhile meals.
> 
> Unfortunately, DramaQueen's coup for 10 lbs. of chicken for only $2.99 isn't a nationwide tradition, & chicken can be fairly pricey these days since many folks began steering away from red meat. While I've definitely found chicken parts on sale for $2.99 PER POUND, $2.99 for 10 pounds of chicken is not only unheard of around here, but frankly would make me rather suspect. In that case, stock might very well be the best way to deal with that chicken. : )


 
*I probably should have qualified my statement about using such cheap chicken for stock.  The chicken in not of good enough quality to eat, maybe old chicken, who knows?   I have tried roasting the legs and thighs and even cooking them in the crockpot.  While they are tender to a point, they just don't taste good. Nothing wrong with them and they are clean and wholesome.    But strangely enough they make terrific broth and I have no idea why.    I too have to question the quality of chicken that sells for .29 cents per pound, but as I said I don't eat it - I make great broth with it.  Go figure. *


----------



## keltin (Sep 25, 2007)

At Wal-Mart (and other stores), they sell a 10 pound bag of leg quarters for 0.49 per pound, so $4.90 per bag. I’ve seen this same bag go on sale for 0.39 per pound during a holiday weekend (read that as time to grill) making it a $3.90 bag. I’ve yet to see them drop to 0.29 per pound. 

There’s nothing wrong with this chicken either. It’s fine. The pieces are huge, but the occasional one is mangled from a bad cut. These are the leg quarters that are left over after the bird is butchered for it’s breasts and wings. I buy these on occasion and then split them into individual bags and freeze them.


----------



## Michael in FtW (Sep 25, 2007)

In a properly made stock there is very little, if any, nutritional value or flavor left in the ingredients you used to made the stock. So, no - making stock is not necessarily wasteful, especially since it is normally made with scraps and bones that are not readily eaten anyway. When you start adding meat, and depending on how much you use (in proportion to the liquid) and how much you reduce it, you elevate it to the status of broth, bouillon or consommé - although these can also be technically classified as stocks.

As for those cheap 10/lb bags of leg quarters - we can get therm down here in TX, too. The price depends on the store and if they are on sale or not - there was a store close to me that used to put them on sale for 0.19/lb every 2-3 months - but since I've moved it wouldn't be worth the $5-$10 in gas to go over there. And, yes, they make great broth and stock since the dark meat has more flavor and collagen than the breasts. And I can made several dishes from them for really cheap!


----------



## auntdot (Sep 25, 2007)

I am not sure what wasteful in stock making means. 

But we make stock all the time.

After we have made a roasted chicken or better yet, turkey, we make stock.  Then we make soup, usually.  And it takes some veggies that we toss at the end, they really are spent.

Wnen we make a beef stock we take bones and go throught the bone and mirepoix thing with some added stuff.  Then we take a a cheap cup of beef and cut it into pieces.  We then sear them and until they are a brown, and leave a lovely fond on the SS pan.  Then we add mirepoix, sometimes roasted, and the stock and do the gentle heating all over again.

It takes a while but the result is fantastic.

At the end the meat is totally spent, it has no flavor at all.  Will sometimes, depending upon how hungry I am, toss some on a roll and slather with jarred BBQ sauce.  It is OK, but there sure ain't no beef flavor left in the meat.

There is certainly protein in the remaining flavorless exhausted meat, which I guess we waste.  But I use the stock to make dynamite demi glace and sauces.  And so I consider the expense worth it.

We are very frugal.  But do we use every bit of protein or nutriment available to us?

Not at all.

And I am glad we do not have to.


----------



## MamaJones (Sep 30, 2007)

I don't believe in wasting food, either.  My mother lived through the Depression and my dad had a German grandmother that knew how to cook 'possum.  I've never gone that far and never will.  But my opinion is, Uncle Sam might be taxing us out the wazoo on what we are paid, the city & state might be taxing us on everything we buy.  But NO ONE has figured out how to tax us on the money that we SAVE by being frugal.

When I make stock, I put a whole chicken -- nothing else -- in the crockpot and leave it on low all night.  In the morning I pour off the broth, put it in the refrigerator, and bone the chicken.  The dark meat is used in a casserole, with pasta, vegetables and a cream soup -- maybe some cheese, top with cracker crumbs or tater tots or what have you.  The light meat is used to make a nice chicken spread for sandwiches or a chicken salad.  The bones, fat and gristle go back into the crock-pot.  Essentially what I am doing is getting three meals out of that one chicken -- the casserole, the sandwiches or salad, and the soup.  

I always keep a "stock container" in my freezer.  When I have little tads of vegetables, or sometimes just the broth from, say, green beans, all this goes into my freezer container.  Add outside leaves of cabbage, leaves of celery,  the bottom stalks from cauliflower & broccoli -- just anything in your day-to-day cooking that might contribute to good stock.  Steer away from corn and potatoes though.  The corn makes the broth too sweet and the flavor and consistency of potatoes changes with freezing.  I also do not like to use the peels of carrots because I find them bitter.  But anyway, when I put the bones back into the crock pot, I add as many of these containers as the crock pot will hold.  Sometimes I will add a chopped onion and some chopped carrot and maybe a block of my home-grown shredded zucchini and some garlic if it's lacking in my freezer containers.  If I want to make a big batch, I use my big electric roaster instead of a crock pot.  Put this on low and let it simmer all day and all that night.  By morning, the bones of that chicken will be so soft you can crush them between your fingers.  Pour the liquid off, then pour a small amount of water back into the pot, and stir it around, to "rinse" the solids.  You'll be surprised how much flavor is still clinging to the solids.  Drain this off.  Combine your first, second and third broths.  The solids can be safely fed to the dog or cat if you mash the bones first.  They love it.  I'm not a nutritionist, but I'm guessing there's still a LITTLE nutrition left in it.  

Now, if you're making just vegetable broth, and you are not using things like onion tops, you can actually use the solids in a zucchini bread or pumpkin bread recipe, using the solids instead of the zucchini or pumpkin.  Or you can prepare a little pasta and add it to that with an 8-oz can of tomato sauce.


----------



## college_cook (Sep 30, 2007)

I'd say depending on what you use your chickens for, and what you use your stock for, it might be wasteful.  I noticed that several of you use whole chickens in your stocks, for example, and to me, that would be wasteful.  This is because I am unlike many of you in the regards that I don't ever use my stocks as soup bases.  I reduce them to glace consistency, and use it for sauces, or sometimes simply to enrich a side dish- like adding chicken glace to cornbread dressing that I might serve with a roasted chicken breast, or simply add it to enrich a soup, rather than it serving as the base.  Something I've done before is to enrich a roasted butterneut squash soup with chicken glace.

For my purposes, having meat on my bones is undesirable, because it puts a dent in the quality of my final glace.  The proteins found in meat simply break down and cloud my stock, and then soak up that valuable liquid that just gets thrown away when I strain.  By keeping meat off the bones, I ensure higher yield and better clarity.

Broths typically are made with meat, because they offer good flavor without needing to be reduced first.  

At the restaurant, we try to use as much of the animal as we can.  Our ducks are a great example of making food go far.  We remove the breasts, trim the fleshy underside, and then score the skin and save these for use in our duck breast entree: one duck breast grabs us $18.  Already we've made back the cost of our duck. The legs are removed and trimmed of excess skin and fat and the cured and confit'd.  One leg of duck confit grabs us $9 ( i think).  So there you have 2x $9  plus  2x $18  for a grand total of $52 from one duck.  The rest of the duck doesn't get sold, but it does get used.  We save our duck livers for later use in pate's, which we occasionally make for VIP customers or special events.  We trim ALL of the skin and fat from the duck body, and throw it into a large pot and then cover with water, and cook it at a bare simmer for about 4 hours.  We strain the skin out and chill the liquid, allowing the fat to rise to the top.  We skim this fat, and this is the fat we use to confit our duck legs.  Sometimes we even use the remaining "duck water" which carries some flavor, to enrich soups or sauces.  Finally, we roast the bones, backs, necks, wings, ribs, and use  that to make duck stock.  The stock gets reduced into glace consistency which we finish a la minute in the pan we use to sear our duck breast, finished with a little whiskey and the peppercorn melange we use to season our duck.  The result is a great entree, Crispy 5-peppercorn duck breast (cooked to MR) with a great whiskey sauce.

Our chicken go through much the same process.


----------



## Rom (Nov 23, 2007)

I use chicken necks to make it but I LOVE to eat the necks after as well...no wastage there. The carrot and potato as well gets eaten. 

But even if I didn't eat it, I would still make it. Tastes good


----------



## expatgirl (Nov 23, 2007)

Anyone price a can of broth recently?  I didn't realize that I must have been gagging in the aisle  at the prices when an elderly gentleman turned around and gave me a funny look.  And canned broth doesn't taste nearly as great as the homemade stuff.   In Kazakhstan, you either make your own broth or too bad.......there is no grocery store to run to.......  that's why there are beautiful bags of chicken and beef bones to buy that cost zip.  I don't know what the return is on nutrients but on flavor and cost to make issues.......priceless


----------



## buckytom (Apr 12, 2008)

expatty, that guy in the store? the old guy? he spent his life making stock after stock and never was able to experience life's pleasure's of travel, dining out, etcetera, in the long years alotted him. his dismay was that of your objection to both the cost of his life's work, and regret for not having canned stock available when he could have used it.


----------



## Robo410 (Apr 12, 2008)

I subscribe to the Keltin principle here too.  I keep a large container for my veg trimmings in the fridge and in go celery and carrot ends, onion ends etc for use in stock.  Bones I store in zip lock bags.  If I'm not making stock this week...into the freezer...but I make soup every couple weeks and have use for stock in many other applications. I also have a stock container which I pour opened unused portions of canned stocks for use during the week if I have no home made.  I hate to waste food and will find a way to use it if possible.  I have cut way down on spoilage by buying very fresh and having a really good fridge too!


----------



## PJP (Apr 13, 2008)

I rarely have time to prepare stock so I normally use chicken/clam base.


----------



## suziquzie (Apr 13, 2008)

My useless opinion here is that making stock from leftover bones is the ABSOLUTE opposite of waste!!! 
You paid 5 bucks for a 5 lb chicken. I feed 5 people (ok 3 are small) 2x on just the meat. If I make stock I dont buy it at $1 a can. I save up 2-3 chickens worth of bones, voila!! 2 months worth (if I dont make soup) of chicken stock.


----------



## expatgirl (Apr 13, 2008)

Well, when you can't buy canned beef or chicken stock and you've been firmly instructed to watch you sodium intake you learn quickly to make your own and regulate the amount of salt in it and not rely on tasteless sodium laden boullion cubes (which  IMHO are only good in a push to shove pinch).  Mike in FW has a wonderful recipe for beef stock (roast the bones first---wonderful!! post is on here somewhere) and for chicken stock freeze all your chicken parts and bones and then make it....so cheap and delicious .....yum!)


----------

