Did you know that there are so many health benefits of gelatin? I recommend that everyone include gelatin in their diet. Everyone. The health benefits of gelatin include improved gut health, skin health, nail health and so much more. But the quality of the gelatin you use is extremely important. Keep reading to learn what kind of gelatin you should be eating daily and more about the health benefits of gelatin.
One of the first things I tell people when they ask for dietary advice is to stop counting calories. Yes you read that right. Proper nutrition involves so much more than the calorie content of food. The most important thing is the quality of the food you are eating. Basically this comes down to using real ingredients, from reliable, natural, sources. Meats from pasture raised animals, produce free from pesticides and genetically modified seeds, natural, unprocessed sweeteners, un-refined fats and oils… you get the idea. I also believe that including a few, high quality supplements in your diet is key to achieving optimal health. Even if you are focusing on eating real, healthy food, it is still easy to become vitamin and mineral deficient, and it is also very difficult to eat everything that you should be eating for optimal health every single day. For this reason one supplement that I cannot recommend enough is gelatin. Grass fed gelatin to be exact. This is actually my favourite superfood and I recommend that everyone take it daily. Yes everyone. You may remember that gelatin is one of the supplements that helped me heal my acne and keratosis pilaris.
The book Nourishing Traditions outlines the many health benefits of gelatin and I now routinely tell people to incorporate this superfood into their diet daily. In fact, I personally eat 2-3 scoops of powdered grassfed gelatin per day and try to drink at least one cup of bone broth daily. That’s how much I love this stuff.
As I mentioned earlier, there are many health benefits of gelatin including:
- It provides an easily utilized source of collagen which is important for skin elasticity and texture
- It helps support bone and joint function and recovery from injury due to its effects on cartilage
- It can help treat osteoarthritis
- It aids in digestion and helps support the gut lining (in other words, it improves gut health, which we are learning more and more everyday how crucial this is to your overall health)
- The glycine in gelatin can help fight inflammation and improve sleep
- It helps promote healthy nails, skin and hair growth due to the keratin content
- Is an easily digestible protein source that contains 18 amino acids (and 6 grams of protein per tablespoon)
I wanted to talk a little more about a few of those health benefits because I think they are so important.
Improves Gut Health
If you have been following my blog for a while you know how passionate I am about gut health. It’s known that gelatin helps prevent intestinal damage and helps improve the quality of the the lining of the digestive tract, helping to decrease intestinal permeability or leaky gut. Leaky gut is being linked to more and more health problems everyday. Everything from autoimmune diseases to obesity to neurological problems. In fact, many medical practitioners, including myself, believe that leaky gut is one of the major causes of most the of health issues that we are facing today. If your gut isn’t healthy, you won’t be healthy. It’s as simple as that.
In fact, gelatin administration has been shown to help treat colitis in animal models of IBD (reference) and it has been shown to help decrease intestinal permeability in humans as well (reference; reference).
Gelatin can improve your ability to produce gastric acid, which is needed for proper food digestion and nutrient absorption. Glycine from gelatin can also help restore the stomach mucosal lining and help improve the balance of digestive enzymes and stomach acid. If you don’t make the proper amount of digestive enzymes or stomach acid, this can lead to many digestive issues including nutrient deficiencies, acid reflux, bloating, indigestion, as well as anemia.
Can Help Treat Arthritis
If you guys didn’t know I am a rheumatologist. That means I see a ton of patients with arthritis. Now, I mainly see patients with rheumatoid arthritis but I do have some patients with osteoarthritis as well. And while there haven’t been a ton of studies looking at the role of gelatin in arthritis, there is evidence that taking it can improve the pain associated with osteoarthritis (reference; reference). It has also been shown to decrease joint pain in athletes (reference). Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any studies that had shown gelatin to be beneficial in patients with rheumatoid arthritis but by improving gut function I do believe that gelatin could indirectly help patients with rheumatoid arthritis as well (and a few of my patients who take it swear it has helped their pain).
Improves Sleep
Now, there isn’t a ton of evidence for this one. But I wanted to include this potential health benefit for one main reason: many people have trouble with sleep, and the drugs that are often prescribed to help with sleep can have some pretty negative long term health effects and addictive properties, so anything we can use to help decrease the use of those medications is worth exploring if you ask me. I could only find one study showing benefit of using gelatin before bed as a sleep aid, but it did show promising results (reference).
Improves Skin Health
You guys all know how much I care about skin health. As someone who has suffered from pretty terrible keratosis pilaris (read How I Healed My Keratosis Pilaris Naturally and How to Treat Keratosis Pilaris with Diet) and adult acne (read How I Healed My Acne Naturally) I have done a lot of research over the years on what can be done to improve skin health. And when it comes to skin health the first supplement I tell people to add to their diet is gelatin. Collagen is considered a primary building block for skin and is partially responsible for giving skin a youthful, healthy appearance. Gelatin is important for renewing skin cells and can also help block your skin from UV light damage (in other words, the damage that can lead to wrinkles, sun spots and even skin cancer). As well age, skin naturally loses some of its collagen content, which is part of the reason why we develop wrinkles. Consuming more gelatin is an easy and natural way to help stimulate new collagen production, not only restoring the skin’s durability, but also helping you maintain strong hair, nails and teeth as well.
How To Add Gelatin To Your Diet
Now that we have reviewed how gelatin can improve your health I wanted to teach you how to actually use it. There are many ways to add more gelatin to your diet. Some of my favourite include:
- Drinking bone broth made with the bones from grassfed animals (you can make your own or buy it here)
- Adding powdered, grass fed gelatin (also known as collagen peptides) to coffee, smoothies or other drinks
- Adding powdered grass fed gelatin to your recipes including soups, stews, sauces and dips
- Adding powdered grass fed gelatin to your paleo friendly oatmeal (like my Paleo Caramel Apple Oatmeal, Paleo Raspberry Oatmeal or Paleo Coconut Blueberry Oatmeal)
- Making recipes that specifically incorporate grassfed gelatin such as my Chocolate Raspberry Bliss Smoothie Bowl, AIP Plantain Waffles and Banana Chocolate Muffin Bites.
Now, not all brands of gelatin are created equal. I suggest NEVER buying the gelatin you see in your regular grocery store. That gelatin comes from animals raised on corn, antibiotics and other nasties and can be extremely harmful to your health. I only recommend using gelatin that comes from pasture raised (grass fed) animals.
There are two brands of grass fed gelatin that I personally use and love: Vital Proteins and Perfect Supplements. I use their collagen peptides daily. Multiple times a day actually. I add 1-2 scoops to my morning coffee and then another to my afternoon tea. I also it it to my smoothies and other recipes like soups and paleo oatmeal.
And my friends over at Perfect Supplements have been kind enough to offer my readers a 10% discount on their grass fed gelatin (collagen peptides). All you have to do is use this link to shop, and then enter the code “SIMPLE10” at checkout. Simple as that. Or simply click on the link below and use the same code at checkout.
Until next time, happy eating!
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How To Heal Keratosis Pilaris With Diet
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References
2. The gut barrier: new acquisitions and therapeutic approaches.
7. Subjective effects of glycine ingestion before bedtime on sleep quality