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Bone Broth Has Officially Arrived: Kobe Bryant Is a Convert

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The aging Lakers star finds that bone broth has healing effects.

Kobe Bryant
Kobe Bryant
Jonathan Moore/Getty Images
Matthew Kang is the Lead Editor of Eater LA. He has covered dining, restaurants, food culture, and nightlife in Los Angeles since 2008. He's the host of K-Town, a YouTube series covering Korean food in America, and has been featured in Netflix's Street Food show.

Lakers star Kobe Bryant is the latest to adopt the growing bone broth trend. Coaxed by team nutritionist Dr. Cate Shanahan, Bryant, along with other team members, enjoy bone-rich broth as a base for soups in order to take advantage of its restorative and health properties, writes ESPN. The broth, which the New York Times is touting as one of the hottest food trends in the country, is produced by simmering nutrient-rich bones for hours.

After nearly two decades of playing professional basketball, Bryant has found that bone broth is great for energy and inflammation, supposedly taking in the "magical elixer" since the 2012-13 season, when team chef Sandra Padilla introduced the Jell-O like stock to things like chicken tortilla, beef stew, minestrone, and 15-bean kale soup.

Lakers strength and conditioning coach Tim DiFrancesco on why Kobe's needed to infuse bone broth into his diet:

"When you make it the right way, you get the minerals and the exact building blocks of what makes up our joint surfaces...He's recognized in the last few years, since sort of pointing him in the direction, of how important that will be...It's ultra, ultra important for him, maybe more so than the other guys, than a 22-year old who has really pristine joint surfaces and can get away with it and maybe doesn't need it right now."

With Bryant and the rest of the Lakers team seeing the health benefits of bone broth, will it become the next avocado toast, a food fad certain to land on countless tables across Los Angeles?

Eater Video: How to Not Screw Up Bone Marrow with Chef Ken Oringer