Coffee protein smoothie for breakfast, now with gelatin! I’ve been reading up on gelatin and the benefits of collagen, so have been having a tablespoon a day of Knox gelatin in a smoothie or hot drink. I’ve been buying bone-in chicken thighs and now wonder if that’s my body’s way of saying *more collagen please* “Collagen is important for skin and bone health, bone and joint health, heal intestinal issues by restoring the normal mucosal layer in the gut.” The story of gelatin actually starts with a protein called collagen. Collagen is the most important protein in connective tissue, skin, and bones; you actually have more collagen in your body than any other type of protein. Degradation or lack of collagen can cause problems from skin wrinkles to osteoporosis.
In food, collagen is found mostly in the “odd bits” and tougher cuts of beef that contain a lot of connective tissue. You might recognize these as the parts of the animals that our ancestors ate, but we typically throw away today. Gelatin comes into this because people rarely eat skin and tendons raw; they cook them. And cooking the collagen transforms it into gelatin. Gelatin is the cooked form of collagen – it’s the way we can eat the beneficial amino acids in the collagen without having to sit down to a lovely plate of raw tendons for dinner.
The benefits of collagen are mostly from the amino acids, and you break down both gelatin and hydrolyzed collagen into the same amino acids in your digestive system anyway, so in terms of health benefits, hydrolyzed collagen and gelatin should be roughly equivalent. But on the other hand, some people with may find the hydrosylate easier to digest, and they do have culinary differences in terms of how you’ll use them.
Health Benefits of Collagen and Gelatin
Collagen is important for skin and bone health – supplements are sold for everything from wrinkles to osteoporosis. As well as supplying the important amino acids for collagen stores in your body, gelatin and hydrolyzed collagen also have gut-healing benefits that might be even more important from a health perspective. Because most of the health benefits of collagen/gelatin come from the amino acids, it’s likely that for most people, the benefits will be the same whether you’re getting hydrolyzed collagen or gelatin.
- This review goes over some of the evidence that supplemental collagen may help improve skin elasticity and reduce roughness and skin aging.
- There’s some evidence that hydrolyzed collagen supplements improve arthritis pain and generally benefit bone and joint health.
- Gelatin may help normalize gut hormones in people with obesity.
- Gelatin and collagen are both also great for your gut – they help heal intestinal permeability (“leaky gut”) and restore the normal mucosal layer in the gut.
Original article at http://paleoleap.com/all-about-gelatin-and-collagen/