Gelatin & Collagen
Keep your body elastic, healthy, and youthful
We used to eat the whole animal and, when we did, we had better tooth health, better facial structure, and better overall health. While much is made of the supposed increase in lifespan we have achieved with medical science, the truth is we have much less quality of health in our lives because of the modern way of eating and behaving. There’s now evidence that our length of life is decreasing again, as well.
Although accidents and the dangers of birthing led to many untimely deaths that we now mostly avoid, we are currently unhealthier for longer and longer periods of our lives and we carry disease with us more commonly. It would serve us to remember our ancestral ways and incorporate what we can back into our habits, moving forward.
The Weston Price Foundation was founded on the work of the pioneering research dentist Weston Price. Weston Price traveled the world at the time of changing diets, when pre-processed, packaged, and preservative filled foodstuffs were becoming more and more the norm and the old ways of eating in season, as the land provided, and utilizing every part of the animal and plant was being forgotten and discarded. He discovered — and thoroughly documented — the overwhelming evidence that modern diets of packaged and processed foods led to poor tooth health, narrow jaws, and poor facial structuring in every people around the world. As far as the native people who were still eating traditional diets, their teeth were consistently free from cavities and their gums free from disease. Their faces were wide and solid and their teeth were straight. He concluded that our modern diet was malnourishing and led to diseased states.
We find, as well, that if we look to skeletons even fifty years back, they had healthier teeth and jaw structures, overall. If we look back one hundred years, it is even more true. If we look back five hundred years, we can find no tooth decay, no narrow jaws, no impacted wisdom teeth… and we can imagine: if our teeth are so diseased because of the modern diet, what else is diseased in our bodies?
Mostly, we are missing animal fats, minerals and nutrients from the organ meats of animals, and the nutrients from the bones of animals. If you’re eating plenty of vegetable, a little grain here and there, and some animal fats and proteins, you’re doing pretty well. Most people, however, need more collagen or animal-bone nutrients.
You can get collagen in powders and mix it into beverages. I mix collagen into my tea or coffee, add it to smoothies, or add it to fresh juices. It is usually flavorless or you can get flavored collagen to mix in your beverages.
I also make bone broth after I cook a whole chicken, being sure to fry up and eat the organ meats that come with the whole chicken. Bone broth is a great drink on its own and you can also use it in soups and broths or to roast other meats in a crock pot or instapot.
Recently, I discovered that free-range, grass-fed gelatin is also amazing, especially for those of us who may have some digestive issues and a system slow to absorb nutrients. Collagen is even more readily available to the body as gelatin and a fun way to get more gelatin into the diet is to make some homemade gelatin gummies or “jello”.
I followed this recipe and made some ginger turmeric “jello” and can’t wait to continue experimenting with various flavors! Try it out:
Add six tblsp of grass fed, free range gelatin to 1 cup of room temperature water, letting it “bloom”
Blend or juice four cups of liquid of any flavor you like — if I had some fruit, I would simply mix it with coconut water, purified water, or just make four cups of the fruit puree or juice itself
Heat the fruit or flavored water, just to hot, not simmering or boiling
Add and stir in the gelatin water after it has fully “bloomed” or rehydrated and turned solid-ish and the heated water is hot
Add honey if you want it to be sweeter (any amount)
When all of it is uniformly mixed into the heated juice or water, pour into moulds or a storage container and let set for four hours or cool in the fridge for faster finishing
Eat and enjoy!
It’s pretty simple and it gives you a tasty, homemade, high quality, super nutrient snack. I ninja-blended some ginger with water and added some turmeric for my first batch and only added about a 1/4 cup of honey for some low carb “jello” snacking.
For those of you dong the Auto-Immune Protocol and avoiding eggs, the grass fed gelatin comes in handy for baking as well. You can bloom a tblsp of egg over low heat with a couple tblsp of water and use it instantly in any recipe for an easy egg replacement.
To make bone broth, keep any bones from a whole chicken, leg of lamb, or any other bone-in meats you’ve recently eaten and throw them in some purified water with some salt, oregano, thyme, black pepper, or any other healthy herb and spice you like and instapot those beauties for three hours on low (or any setting). You can strain out the bones and herbs or keep them all together and siphon off broth as you need. It keeps well in the fridge for a good amount of time and is handy in so many recipes. If you don’t cook bone-in animal meats, you can get bones from butchers or other specialty meat shops for SUPER CHEAP. You just want to bake these at 300 for an hour or so first, to activate the process and more easily more collagen when you move to the next step.
The powdered collagens we see everywhere are not ideal, though they provide a great option if you’re not comfortable making your own bone broth or homemade gummies and “jellos” and looking to add collagen to your diet, but definitely move toward the whole animal, bone broth, gelatin option as you are able. Your skin will glow brighter, your wrinkles will reduce or leave entirely, your body will feel freer in movement and range, and your entire system will begin to revitalize itself.
Take care of your body and age gracefully with your health intact!
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