Collagen is booming in the health and fitness industry right now! Foods rich in collagen can do wonders not only for your skin and hair but also your muscles and joints. But, before you start following a collagen diet, taking collagen supplements, or consuming innumerable cups of bone broth, you need to know what boosting collagen can do for your body, which foods to consume for increasing collagen intake, and much more. This article tells you everything you need to know about the benefits of collagen-rich foods. Let’s begin!
In This Article
Collagen: What Is It?
Collagen is one of the most important proteins that your body makes. It is the strongest of all the tissue fibers that make up connective tissues. Your skin, hair, bones, nails, joints, muscles, blood vessels, cartilagesi XA resilient connective tissue that safeguards your bones and joints. , cells, placentai XA transitory embryonic organ that develops in the uterus during pregnancy and provides nutrients to the fetus. , and other organs have collagen in them. Collagen is made up of three alpha chains. Each alpha chain is made up of thousands of amino acids (the building blocks of protein), with glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline being the most abundant (1).
Collagen is a crucial part of connective tissues responsible for giving structure, elasticity, and firmness to your body. Foods rich in collagen reinforce your body’s natural collagen production by stimulating the fibroblasts (cells in the skin) that make collagen (2).
And this leads you to the next part— what is a collagen diet?
The Collagen Diet: Know The Facts
The collagen diet is a way of eating that limits sugar intake and incorporates foods rich in collagen, a collagen food supplement, or foods that boost your body’s ability to produce collagen (3). Let’s look at some quick facts about it:
- Naturally, collagen as food is found in animal parts, like chicken, meat, fish, and dairy products (4).
- The body makes collagen on its own in a complex series of processes that involve amino acids, copper, zinc, and vitamin C (5), (6), (7), (8).
- With age, the body’s collagen production becomes low and collagen diets may help reverse some of the signs of aging (9).
- Collagen injections or collagen supplements also form a part of certain collagen diets (10).
- The research on collagen supplements is in its initial stages with promising results. However, there is not enough evidence to support its complete safety. ( 11), ( 12).
Note: According to American Council on Science and Health, collagen supplements are not evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). So, do enough research before you buy any supplements (13).
Stylecraze SaysAvoid intake of foods high in sugar and refined carbs because they can cause damage to collagen and lead to inflammation.
If you want to steer clear of supplements (more details on this coming up later) or injections, then how do you increase collagen naturally? The answer is, through eating right. So, let’s see if we can find some healthy foods and herbs rich in collagen.
The Best Food Sources Of Collagen
You can approach the collagen diet in several ways. You can eat collagen-rich foods for hair and skin or you can take a collagen food supplement with your doctor’s advice. Either way, you stand to gain from incorporating foods high in collagen, and foods that help you make more collagen in your body, in your diet.
1. Foods Rich In Collagen
You can consume collagen-rich foods for hair, skin, bone, and gut health. The collagen you eat breaks down into amino acids, which are then distributed to the parts of your body where collagen can (or needs to) be made. Glycine, lysine, proline, leucinei XThe amino acid that helps break down proteins and repairs muscles. , hydroxyproline, and hydroxylysine are some of the essential amino acids for collagen production. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, meat is a good source of collagen (14).
- Beef
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Beef is one of the best sources of amino acids, the building blocks of connective tissues. Beef is also a natural source of collagen and is widely used in the extraction process for making collagen peptides (supplements). So, when you are biting into a juicy steak, you are doing yourself a favor (15).
- Fish With Skin
The skin that you find on fish, especially sea-fish, is rich in collagen. Apart from that, fish is a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, which promote skin health (16).
- Chicken
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If you are a fan of lean meat and enjoy eating chicken, you are supplying your body with a ton of ingredients that it needs to cook up some collagen for you. Chicken neck and cartilage are exceptionally good sources, so you may want to prepare chicken stock/broth/soup with these for a collagen boost (17).
- Eggs
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Eggs are a very healthy way to incorporate healthy proteins into your diet as they contain amino acids that make collagen (18).
