Eat this to increase your collagen, naturally
June 25, 2009 by Yafa Sakkejha
Filed under Anti Aging Articles, Featured
If you’re looking for a food that will naturally prevent and fill in wrinkles, Royal Jelly is a strong contender.
Royal Jelly is a thick substance produced by the endocrine glands of nurse bees for the purpose of feeding the queen bee and larvae (baby bees).
Royal Jelly contains collagen, a main protein in our connective tissues which keeps our skin youthful, smooth, and wrinkle-free. A Japanese team of scientists found in 2004 that it promotes the synthesis of new collagen in the body.(1)
It also contains 28 trace minerals, including Sulfur (S), Zinc (Zn), Manganese (Mn), and Iron (Fe), which are essential for skin beauty.(2)
Sulfur, Manganese, and Zinc promote cell and tissue regeneration, which helps to produce collagen that has been destroyed through lifestyle factors, such as excessive exposure to the sun, alcohol consumption, and eating many advanced glycated end-products (“A.G.E.s”) in refined & processed foods. Further, iron-rich blood gives the skin a youthful, “colourful” glow.
Royal Jelly can be found in natural grocery stores, online, or at specialty stores such as Honey World in Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market.
It’s a little on the expensive side ($62 for a jar), so if you’re cash-strapped, a regular good quality unpasteurized or raw honey for about $10 also contains many of the same trace minerals, including Silicon (Si). Please note that we earn no financial benefits from your purchase of any bee products.
What’s even more interesting is that The Journal of Trace Elements in Medicine and Biology reported that Royal Jelly seemed to be the result of nurse bees’ lactation, lending it the same function as human breast milk, and indeed had the same homeostatic adjustment in the body that human milk does.(3)
In laymen’s terms, it stabilizes the body’s internal chemical environment after we alter it through a poor lifestyle: for example, restoring the acid-alkaline balance of the blood, and stabilizing blood glucose levels.
Sources:
3. Ibid.
Images by Trevor Henry and Micaela Rossato.
How to reverse wrinkles using food (and only food)
January 29, 2009 by Yafa Sakkejha
Filed under Anti Aging Articles, Featured
Tomato skin contains the mineral Silicon, which rebuilds the skin’s collagen
I visited my doctor this week and noticed some brochures about botox, microdermabrasion, and restylane fillers. I asked the resident aesthetician if she thought it was possible to reverse wrinkles using food only, and she replied, “No. There’s no way. Fillers are the only way.”
I have to respect that she’s trying to make a living, but since I personally know several women who indeed have reversed their wrinkles using only specific food choices, I thought I’d post about how one can do this at home, using a grocery store in place of a needle.
Why are wrinkles caused?
Our skin has 3 layers: epidermis on top, dermis, and subcutaneous tissue underneath.
The dermis contains the structural elements of the skin, the connective tissue. Collagen is one protein that is a type of connective tissue which gives the skin its strength. Elastin fibres are another type, which lends to elasticity.
Where the dermis and epidermis meet is where connective tissue delivers nutrients from blood vessels to the epidermis. The stronger the connective tissue, the more nutrients reach the skin, giving it a youthful appearance.
As we age, less collagen is produced by the body, and the elastin fibres wear out. The connective tissues weaken without a diet high in minerals. These changes in the scaffolding of the skin cause tiny sags, which are wrinkles. Other factors leading to breaking down our body’s collagen are the sun, pollution, free radicals, and toxins.
Imagine it as a building that has pillars keeping the roof up: if the pillars weaken over time and the roof starts to sink, the thing to do would be to rebuild the pillars – we wouldn’t put something on top of the roof to fix the pillar. So, anti aging serums and creams fill in the holes temporarily, but cannot restore the youthful plumpness, stretched look, and elasticity for the long term.
Many people are starting to discover this and reverse their wrinkles themselves, at home, simply by instituting a simple change in nutrition.
Foods & minerals that erase wrinkles
1. Sulfur-residue foods
Sulfur-residue foods contain enzymes that help keep the skin flexible and the collagen strong, rebuilding it and protecting it from damage. Many people are deficient in sulfur because it’s extremely volatile: it’s either evaporated or destroyed by cooking.
Sulfur-residue foods:
- Bee pollen
- Cabbage
- Hot peppers
- Broccoli
- Garlic
- Horseradish
- Radish
- Kale
- Onions
- Pumpkin seeds
- Spirulina
- Watercress
2. Foods containing the mineral Silicon
Silicon maintains the strength and elasticity of cell walls and connective tissue. It directly aids in the regeneration of tissues, and thus makes a direct impact on the skin’s wrinkles.
Sources of Silicon:
- Radishes
- Romaine lettuce
- Burdock root (can be consumed as a tea)
- Cucumber skin
- Bell pepper skin
- Tomato skin
- Young leafy greens
- Steel cut oats
- Barley
- Spinach
- Bananas
- Apricots
- Nettles
- Red lentils
3. Foods containing the mineral Zinc
Zinc is essential for skin beauty. It promotes cell repair and growth, and is a key member of a group of enzymes that helps to maintain its collagen supply.
Without zinc, the enzymes that rebuild new collagen do not function properly.
In addition to preventing wrinkles, Zinc also prevents and aids in the healing of stretch marks, cellulite, and other outward signs of aging.
Great Zinc sources:
- Poppy seeds
- Pumpkin seeds
- Sunflower seeds
- Pine nuts
- Cashews
- Macadamia nuts
- Sesame seeds
- Young coconuts (“old” ones are the brown ones we see in regular stores, and won’t do. “Young” ones can be purchased from Asian markets).
We highly recommend that these foods are eaten raw, since heating foods over 118°F causes the enzymes to be denatured, and destroys 50% to 80% of the nutrients.
Good luck, and let us know how it goes!
Sources:
- Dr. Heather Brannon, MD
- Dr. Gabriel Cousens, MD
- Jessica Moore, Registered Holistic Nutritionist
- Eating for Beauty, by David Wolfe, Nutritionist
- Victoria Boutenko, Author, Green for Life, and a woman who reversed her wrinkles naturally
- Cambridge University Press: A provisional database for the silicon content of foods in the United Kingdom http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=924600
