Bone broth can make your skin look A-MAZING!

Bone broth has been steadily gaining acknowledgment over the last few years. Its popularity among celebs seems to be growing by the day. Gwyneth Paltrow, Salma Hayek, Kylie Jenner, Halle Berry… The list goes on and on. Celebrities are jumping on the bandwagon of the health benefits of this stock's posh relative.

All food is, essentially, ingestible skincare. Whatever we eat sooner or later shows in the state of our skin. 

Bone broth is a stock made from cooked animal ligaments, connective tissue, and bones, with the addition of veggies and herbs for a richer flavor.

Bone broth is packed full of clean protein, amino acids, vitamins, collagen, and other nutrients.  This makes it a staple culinary item in several cultures for centuries, and for a good reason.

The fact is, even if you’re careful what you eat at all times, having a history of taking over-the-counter painkillers, antibiotics, and other modern medications will leave a mark on our digestive system. Sometimes we just need to make small, simple changes in our diet to nourish our gut back to health.

Bone broth contains minerals that nourish the skin cells, and they can calm any inflammation in the body. Consequently, this applies to the face as well. Nutrients such as calcium, amino acids, collagen, hyaluronic acid, and glycosaminoglycans really can help to clear our skin.

Beyond the skin

The benefits don't stop there, though.  Ingredients in bone broth are not only good for our skin, but they are also great for strengthening gut health and suppressing inflammation. Bone broth is beneficial for anyone with digestive and inflammatory type conditions.

As we age, the collagen in our body breaks down, and the rate at that our body can produce collagen slowly declines. The reduction of collagen levels in our body causes wrinkles, dry skin, brittle hair, and achy joints. Studies suggest that adding collagen to our diet can reload our collagen reserves.

Not only is bone broth rich with collagen- but it’s also particularly high in glycine and proline, molecules that are the essential building blocks used by our bodies to increase collagen production.

Hyaluronic acid, collagen, gelatin

Bone broth even supplies the skin with hyaluronic acid, which is also naturally found in the body. Hyaluronic acid helps retain existing collagen, increase moisture, and provide skin elasticity and flexibility. Collagen and hyaluronic acid work as a team to give our skin that much-sought glow.

The real benefit of bone broth comes from the slow cooking process. This breaks down the bones and connective tissues of the meat. As we sip the yummy broth, we take in collagen and gelatin. Both of these compounds are exceptionally healing. Collagen is a building block of cells found everywhere from our skin and bones to our brain, and gelatine is a form of collagen that helps our digestion function properly.

There have been studies done to investigate just how collagen impacts skin health and can bone broth help our body’s collagen production. Scientists were also interested in the difference between topical collagen vs. ingested collagen. 

Topical vs. ingested collagen

Here’s what they discovered:

Collagen and elastin are the building blocks of our skin. As we age, our natural reserves decline, leading to skin changes: laxity, wrinkles, and loss of suppleness.

This collagen deterioration can start as early as our twenties.  This process can be sped up through poor lifestyle choices like poor diet, smoking, and too much sun exposure.

Because bone broth contains a large amount of collagen and gelatin, consuming broth may help support your body’s ability to create collagen and help keep skin strong and youthful for longer.

Let’s not forget the taste

There are many topical, anti-aging collagen products available on the market. While these are great in one mission: adding moisture to the skin, the collagen molecule is just too large to penetrate inside the skin and affect the way it works. Basically, we could say it just sits on top of our skin, doing close to nothing.

On the other hand, ingesting collagen through bone broth increases our body’s capacity to soak up collagen, improving the look and function of our skin.

We still have many unanswered questions about the health benefits of supplemental, ingested collagen—whether it’s in the form of bone broth or in other supplements. And while one cup of bone broth probably won’t do wonders and give you instant radiating, glowing skin, prolonged use will for sure get you there. Plus it just tastes sooo good!