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For nutritional reasons, i am making a large amount of chicken & bone broth. I use a whole chicken, and simmer it in a large pot for about 24 hours.

Currently however, i do not wish to ingest as much fat. I learned that chicken broth will contain approximately 10-15% fat.

I could easily remove/separate the fat from the broth, but i am concerned as to whether i would then also lose the collagen, gelatine, mineral and other nutrients.

The question is therefore: are these contained in the fat? Or are they to be found in the liquid itself?

SquareCat
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Most of what you're interested is in the water/broth, not the fat.

This is especially obvious for the gelatin; the whole reason that broth has that nice mouthfeel and thickens or gels when chilled is that it's full of gelatin. The other proteins and nutrients are just as water-soluble.

You may end up with some particles mixed into the fat, so it might not be pure fat, but it's pretty close.

Cascabel
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  • Thank you – you got me some good keywords there. Solulability! I did some research but i found this statement: "Collagen is a scleroprotein, being one of a family of proteins marked by low solubility in water" (Source: https://www.britannica.com/science/collagen). It makes me wonder whether something that presents low solulability in water automatically binds better to any fat molecules being around? – SquareCat Feb 04 '17 at 19:59
  • As far as I know, the collagen breaks down (into things including gelatin), and whatever doesn't break down just stays in the meat. It's not going to be in the fat or the broth, except for visible particles of meat. – Cascabel Feb 04 '17 at 21:00
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    Here's from Nutrition & Dietetics professor on the matter: "The good news is you are not removing any essential nutrients when you remove the fat from broth. These you name are water soluble —they go and stay into solution in the watery broth part. Only fat soluble vitamins would be in the fat you strain off. However, the only fat soluble nutrients are vitamins A, D, E and K and these vitamins would not be in soup. These would be in either dairy, vegetable oil and salad dressing or vegetables." – SquareCat Feb 05 '17 at 00:08
  • @SquareCat Collagen is insoluble in water *in its raw state* otherwise, any collagen in an animal would lose the structural strength it provides if dissolved. But when cooked at temperatures a little below simmering, it **denatures** into a soluble form. ---Denature in any protein means the 3-dimensional shape is rearranged - same amino acids but different shape and properties; in this case, solubility. None binds to the fat itself. – Jude Feb 05 '17 at 03:37