Your Paleo Broth Obsession Is Causing Butchers to Run Out of Bones

You'd have to have been living under a rock not to have heard about paleo. Or, maybe—so committed that you are to the "Stone Age Diet"—you actually have been living under some sort of rock-based shelter, shrouded in animal fur and sharpening flints like a true caveman.

Paleo, a way of eating that views man's nutritional requirements as largely unchanged since the Paleolithic era, shuns processed foods, as well as certain grains, dairy products, and sugar. Growing in popularity over the past few years, it was 2013's most Googled diet and has been dabbled in by celebrities including Matthew McConaughey and Jessica Biel.

While chefs like Boris Leite-Poço and his world-first Paleo restaurant in Berlin have inspired many to adopt the meat-heavy diet, one aspect of Paleo has enticed the palate of even the most staunch 21st century eaters: bone broth.

Once the preserve of Vietnamese chefs and Jewish grandmothers, the boiled animal bone liquid is now sold in steaming cups like coffee and touted by the Spiralizing Hemsley sisters as a skin-clearing elixir. (Just don't call it stock.)

But this Paleo-inspired taste for bone broth, which can be made from marrow bones, chicken carcases, and pig trotters, is impacting more than just the "Weird Food Trends of 2015" roundup lists. According to Australia's ABC Rural, the increased interest in what is basically hot animal juice has caused a rise in demand for animal bones, with some butchers running out altogether.

Speaking to the news outlet, manager of Melbourne butcher shop Cherry Tree Organics, Kate Blundy said that bones were her second most popular product in the last three months.

"The main reason is that people are following the GAPs (Gut and Psychology Syndrome) and Paleo diets," she explained.

Similarly, butcher Kerin Ambler from Campbell's Quality Meats in Victoria said she had witnessed a rise in the number of people buying bones for broth in the last 12 months.

"We don't throw one bone out in the shop. It all gets sold for dog food or we have people coming in for the bone broth. A lot of the time we don't have enough [bones]," she said.

It's not just the Australian meat industry witnessing an increased demand for animal bones. Speaking to the Financial Times in March, Pete Servold of San Diego paleo food-order business Pete's Paleo said he had seen a 300 percent rise in bone broth sales, due to customers finding that bone broth "really is great for you. It actually does improve your skin."

While butchers and Paleo food specialists may benefit from such increased interest, there is concern over the nutritional impact of eating like a caveman. In March, Pete Evans, the Australian celebrity chef credited with widening Paleo's appeal Down Under, was forced to withdraw a Paleo baby cookbook he co-authored amid health concerns from Australia's Federal Department of Health. Titled Bubba Yum Yum: The Paleo Way For New Mums, Babies, and Toddlers, the book recommended bone broth as a "DIY baby milk formula."

The British Dietetic Association has also cast doubt on the health benefits of relying so heavily on meat, labelling the diet as "a dangerous fad," while anthropologists have criticised its simplified view of hominid ecology.

Paleo concerns aside, there's hard to see much wrong with a warm bowl of bone broth on a dark winter's evening (or unseasonably wet July afternoon). Just spare a thought for all the butchers' dogs robbed of those previously unwanted marrow bones. You think Stone Age man would have treated his faithful wolf like that?