In addition to the natural aging process toxins and environmental pollutants excessive sun exposure smoking and eating a diet high in refined sugar and fried foods also destroy our natural collagen.
What foods have high collagen.
Although supplementation is widely available including a few servings of collagen rich foods or collagen boosting foods in your diet can help optimize collagen levels to minimize joint pain and keep your skin soft and smooth.
However cuts of beef or chicken aren t necessarily going to contain high concentrations of collagen.
Adele jackson gibson senior editor adele jackson gibson is a certified fitness.
The highest concentrations of collagen are in connective tissue i e tendons ligaments.
Sugar can cross link with collagen fibers and produce compounds called advanced glycation end.
These factors can interfere with future collagen production and may cause visible signs of aging.
But you don t need to be 40 to start eating more collagen friendly antioxidant rich foods.
It s quite a time consuming process though and many companies have created high quality bone broth products that you can purchase in stores or online like bonafide provisions osso good and kettle fire.
Red vegetables in particular contain the antioxidant lycopene which essentially acts as a natural sunblock and collagen booster so next time you re prepping for a trip to the grocery store mark foods like peppers tomatoes and strawberries on your shopping list.
Eating collagen rich foods or foods that boost collagen production may help create the building blocks amino acids you need for your skin goals.
Oysters contain high levels of copper which according to moore is another mineral that helps us to create collagen.
This is made by cooking chicken beef or other animal bones to extract the collagen and minerals dr.
Collagen has been well studied for its medicinal properties in recent years and it s an important compound that many of us don t get enough of.
Here s another example of how the rainbow of foods plays different roles in our health.