#you are probably getting “enough” vitamin c to survive and be basically okay

[3liza]

yes

scurvy has got to have one of the biggest disease/treatment coolness gaps of all time. like yeah too much time at sea will afflict you with a curse where your body starts unraveling and old wounds come back to haunt you like vengeful ghosts. unless☝️you eat a lemon

[72stars]

Golden Deer Food & Wine Festival (aka idle thoughts on characters' favorite foods and teas)

in which I try to organize information and my thoughts on a topic and then go ahead and post it because "eh, someone else might be interested". includes Fire Emblem: Three Houses spoilers, but mostly about Claude's heritage which is basically an open secret in this fandom in general by now anyway? (honestly if you're paying attention you can figure it out in part one pretty easily - he may have promised his parents not to say where he's from but he really pushes the boundaries on that promise.) anyway fair warning!

post includes: the Golden Deer and the (non-Wolf) students I've recruited in my current playthrough (Sylvain, Caspar, Linhardt, Dorothea, Ferdinand, Mercedes, + Cyril & Flayn) because, well, those are the characters on my mind atm and this is already going to be super long, so I'll leave it there (for now?)...

Byleth

no canonical information. a blank slate that eats a lot, for you to headcanon preferences onto as you wish. iirc there's one or two early game questions other characters ask re: whether Byleth likes sweet or spicy food (as if these are somehow mutually exclusive), but these effect nothing but affection points.

(headcanon: actually really likes both sweet and spicy foods, but main preference is just for convenient foods - sweet bun trio, sandwiches, skewers, etc. something they can shove in their face as they move on to whatever they're doing next. also likes sweet teas. likes putting more sugar in their sweet teas. sometimes has to be actively stopped from turning their tea into a lightly tea-flavored pile of wet sugar. why are you like this, Teach? (the answer: not used to sweets and now has regular access to them and cannot and will not be stopped))

Claude

favorite teas: Almyran Pine Needles, Chamomile

liked foods: Pheasant Roast with Berry Sauce, Beast Meat Teppanyaki, Pickled Rabbit Skewers, Daphnel Stew, Gronder Meat Skewers, Derdriu-Style Fried Pheasant, Onion Gratin Soup, Country-Style Red Turnip Plate, Vegetable Stir-Fry, Bourgeois Pike, Sauteed Jerky, Garreg Mach Meat Pie, Cheesy Verona Stew, Gautier Cheese Gratin, Cabbage and Herring Stew

disliked foods: Saghert and Cream, Sweet Bun Trio, Fried Crayfish

cooking ability: okay (mentions in different places that he can cook, but maybe it's just wrt to Almyran dishes. though given his cooking dialogue shows him being adventurous with ingredients/ingredient combinations, it might also just be that he cooks things that he really likes, but everyone else is just kind of "eh, it's okay" on because of how much he tailored it to his preferences...) (thinking about it, given his knowledge of poisons and the fact that he's survived multiple assassination attempts, I wonder if his cooking style (and also maybe his fondness for wild game) came about because he had to learn to cook for himself with whatever he could get his hands on to limit opportunities to kill him...)

thoughts:

fandom: haha Dimitri likes cheese :)

Claude: YEAH, look at that wacky guy Dimitri, liking all the cheese dishes. so silly, liking cheese so much, haha... ha... *quietly shoves more cheese in his mouth when no one's looking*

...yeah but no seriously it's just funny to me that you see a lot of fanart with Claude playing the straight man to Dimitri's cheese fixation and oh, would you look at that, guess who likes every cheese dish on the menu. Dimitri, yes, but also Claude. (doesn't like the Blue Cheese gift item, though. guess he prefers his cheese with less mold in it, idk) (and okay, with the cooking ability section in mind: how much cheese do you think he puts in his cooking. maybe Dimitri'd like his cooking...)

okay, call-out post about Claude's love of cheese aside, main things of note: doesn't like sweets (though apparently is neutral on it if it's ice cream, maybe because of the novelty? will also accept sweet sauce on pheasant), really likes cheese and pheasant and meat-heavy dishes in general. "eh" on fish, likes some vegetable dishes. likes a fair amount of convenient foods, like skewers, the meat pie, and the fried pheasant, which specifically mentions its sandwichability in its description. would probably love fast food, just burgers and 20 piece chicken nuggets everyday. likes almost every recipe in the "bitter" category, and everything in the "meat" category.

tea! likes the explicitly Almyran tea, because of course he does, and, interestingly, chamomile, which according to the description "calms nerves and heightens concentration", the latter of which fits with Claude, and the former of which fits with what chamomile's known for irl, and is interesting to me, in a "further justifies my headcanon of Claude having anxiety issues, he's just usually pretty adept at hiding it" kind of way. (being subjected to assassination attempts and harassment from an early age will do that to you, I'd imagine) oh, and apparently pine needle tea is actually a thing? and it's said to be good for eyesight, and high in vitamins A & C, so good for things like skin regeneration and your immune system...

Hilda

favorite teas: Albinean Berry Blend, Southern Fruit Blend, Rose Petal Blend, Mint Leaves

liked foods: Saghert and Cream, Sweet Bun Trio, Peach Sorbet, Derdriu-Style Fried Pheasant, Country-Style Red Turnip Plate, Fish and Bean Soup, Fisherman’s Bounty, Two-Fish Saute, Cheesy Verona Stew, Gautier Cheese Gratin

disliked foods: Garreg Mach Meat Pie, Pickled Seafood and Vegetables, Cabbage and Herring Stew

cooking ability: okay (and is very "haha it's probably going to be bad don't be upset if it is :) ( :( )" about it, oh no. does mention having fun, but also would rather not do it every day)

thoughts: a fan of sweets and cheese (though not as much of a fan as Claude on the latter, given she's missing a cheese dish). likes fish well enough, so long as it's not pickled or has fish guts in it (two of her liked fish dishes have white trout in them - favorite fish?). has a surprisingly wide variety of teas she likes. just kind of has a variety of likes in general, maybe cultivated by her social butterfly nature? just kind of picked up different dishes and teas she likes from trying foods her friends and people she's getting to know like. (thinking about it, the "oh, okay" varied aspect of her liked/disliked lists could also be due to her fear of disappointing people - she could possibly like or dislike more things but doesn't express that so as to avoid people being like "oh." at her. or maybe she just has varied tastes, eh. (either way though she still stares directly into Claude's eyes as she pushes two of his favorite dishes onto the floor like a disappointed and judgemental cat))

Lorenz

favorite teas: Bergamot, Rose Petal Blend, Seiros Tea

liked foods: Saghert and Cream, Daphnel Stew, Onion Gratin Soup, Fish and Bean Soup, Fruit and Herring Tart, Two-Fish Saute, Bourgeois Pike, Garreg Mach Meat Pie, Cabbage and Herring Stew

disliked foods: Beast Meat Teppanyaki, Pickled Rabbit Skewers, Gronder Meat Skewers, Fisherman’s Bounty, Spicy Fish and Turnip Stew, Sweet and Salty Whitefish Saute, Sauteed Pheasant and Eggs, Small Fish Skewers

cooking ability: okay (starts out confident despite admitted lack of experience then quickly goes "uhhhh what am I doing ;;")

thoughts: likes three expensive teas (though neither of the two most expensive), because of course he does, and one of them has rose petals, because of course it does. (interestingly, the Seiros tea is specifically mentioned as Almyran - "Seiros tea" is just its name in Fodlan. kind of quietly hinting at his potential for a friendly rivalry and later just friendship with Claude via one of his main interests? hm. or maybe it's just "gotta look religious because I'm a noble so I guess I'll drink the religiously named tea". it's also said to be "fairly basic" in its flavors, maybe good for adding whatever you'd like into it, which would appeal to a tea nerd? also fun fact: bergamot is used in the real-world Early Grey Tea, which is probably what 3H's Bergamot tea is meant to be. a tea associated with being "posh" or upper-class and associated with a real-world noble...) also likes the dish that literally has "bourgeois" in the name, because of course he does. has a lot of dislikes, and apparently a specific fish dislike of Teutates Loach, which features in all of his disliked fish dishes except for the fish skewers, which is also the only recipe with the Airmid Goby. not a fan of wild game dishes - is it specifically the wild game, or does he just not like non-fish or -poultry meat in general? hm

Marianne

favorite teas: Dagda Fruit Blend, Cinnamon Blend, Lavender Blend

liked foods: Saghert and Cream, Sweet Bun Trio, Peach Sorbet, Vegetable Pasta Salad, Onion Gratin Soup, Vegetable Stir-Fry, Fish and Bean Soup, Fruit and Herring Tart, Fisherman’s Bounty, Two-Fish Saute, Bourgeois Pike, Super-Spicy Fish Dango, Sauteed Pheasant and Eggs, Cheesy Verona Stew, Cabbage and Herring Stew

disliked foods: Beast Meat Teppanyaki, Pickled Rabbit Skewers, Gronder Meat Skewers, Gautier Cheese Gratin

cooking ability: okay (mother taught her when she was very young, but not good at complicated dishes. probably hasn't had the chance to cook much since her parents disappeared...)

thoughts: going through her liked foods I thought she was pescatarian, which makes sense, then all of a sudden pheasant dish. I guess she's mostly pescatarian but just really likes that one dish? a guilty pleasure sort of thing. (wait, actually, according to the description the vegetable stir-fry has eggs in it. maybe she likes eggs?) another fan of sweets, and likes two teas with "unique" flavors. also, lavender is said to be good for anxiety...

Lysithea

favorite teas: Sweet-Apple Blend, Southern Fruit Blend, Crescent-Moon Tea, Honeyed-Fruit Blend

liked foods: Saghert and Cream, Sweet Bun Trio, Pheasant Roast with Berry Sauce, Peach Sorbet, Pickled Rabbit Skewers, Derdriu-Style Fried Pheasant, Two-Fish Saute

disliked foods: Vegetable Pasta Salad, Onion Gratin Soup, Country-Style Red Turnip Plate, Vegetable Stir-Fry, Grilled Herring, Fish and Bean Soup, Fruit and Herring Tart, Fish Sandwich, Bourgeois Pike, Sauteed Jerky, Spicy Fish and Turnip Stew, Sweet and Salty Whitefish Saute, Super-Spicy Fish Dango, Sauteed Pheasant and Eggs, Garreg Mach Meat Pie, Cheesy Verona Stew, Pickled Seafood and Vegetables, Cabbage and Herring Stew, Small Fish Skewers, Fried Crayfish

cooking ability: okay (confident, steers away from using an unspecified vegetable because "it's not highly favored". not highly favored by who, hm? :V)

thoughts: oh. my. god, this fucking dislike list. I started laughing like halfway through it because it's ridiculous, she dislikes basically every vegetable dish and all but like two fish dishes (and the one fish dish she likes is the buttery one), but of course loves everything sweet. Lysithea. Lysithea. this is not how you get people to not view you as a child, Lysithea.

also it's kind of funny she specifically likes the wild game dish that involves rabbits, given she has roughly the coloration of an albino one, and even has lop ear-like chunks of hair. that's cannibalism, Lysithea.

Leonie

favorite teas: Four-Spice Blend, Angelica Tea

liked foods: Beast Meat Teppanyaki, Daphnel Stew, Gronder Meat Skewers, Derdriu-Style Fried Pheasant, Onion Gratin Soup, Vegetable Stir-Fry, Grilled Herring, Fish and Bean Soup, Fruit and Herring Tart, Fisherman’s Bounty, Fish Sandwich, Two-Fish Saute, Bourgeois Pike, Spicy Fish and Turnip Stew, Sweet and Salty Whitefish Saute, Super-Spicy Fish Dango, Cheesy Verona Stew, Pickled Seafood and Vegetables, Cabbage and Herring Stew

disliked foods: Saghert and Cream, Sweet Bun Trio, Peach Sorbet, Small Fish Skewers

cooking ability: okay (confident, "just do what feels right")

thoughts: in direct contrast to Lysithea, likes practically everything on the menu but the sweets, but particularly likes fish and vegetables. her favorite teas are a "cleansing herbal tea" and one "that requires a mature palate". she's the practical tomboy big sister of the group and she's not too fussy. also the only female character so far to not like sweets. oh, and did you know angelica is an actual plant? it has medicinal uses, but is also used in alcohol...

Ignatz

favorite teas: Dagda Fruit Blend, Seiros Tea, Lavender Blend

liked foods: Saghert and Cream, Sweet Bun Trio, Vegetable Pasta Salad, Vegetable Stir-Fry, Fish and Bean Soup, Fruit and Herring Tart, Fisherman’s Bounty, Two-Fish Saute, Bourgeois Pike, Super-Spicy Fish Dango, Sauteed Pheasant and Eggs, Garreg Mach Meat Pie, Cabbage and Herring Stew

disliked foods: Spicy Fish and Turnip Stew, Pickled Seafood and Vegetables, Gautier Cheese Gratin

cooking ability: okay (humble, gonna do his best, interested in aesthetics as much as taste)

thoughts: another almost-pescatarian character with a poultry dish (or two, in his case - three if you include that sneaky egg-having stir-fry dish) in the mix! also the first of the dudes in this post to like more than one sweet dish (he's also implied by Raph to have low blood sugar, so the penchant for sweets makes sense even besides as a simple taste thing? though eating meat or some kind of protein in general generally helps me out more, personally). has a broad range of liked teas - one "unique", one "basic", one "refreshing". note the lavender tea, though, and remember its use for anxiety.

Raphael

favorite teas: Almond Blend, Ginger Tea

liked foods: Pheasant Roast with Berry Sauce, Beast Meat Teppanyaki, Pickled Rabbit Skewers, Daphnel Stew, Gronder Meat Skewers, Derdriu-Style Fried Pheasant, Country-Style Red Turnip Plate, Fish and Bean Soup, Fisherman’s Bounty, Fish Sandwich, Sauteed Jerky, Sauteed Pheasant and Eggs, Garreg Mach Meat Pie, Cheesy Verona Stew, Pickled Seafood and Vegetables, Gautier Cheese Gratin

disliked foods: Vegetable Pasta Salad, Vegetable Stir-Fry, Fried Crayfish

cooking ability: a disaster (good at eating food, but not making it. "try throwing everything together and pouring in some salt. I'd eat that!" honey, no.)

thoughts: practically a carnivore - has exactly one dish he likes with no meat in it, and it's the "country-style" one. if it's not full of protein (or country-style) he's not interested. speaking of protein, one of his favorite teas literally has sliced nuts in it - a tea with protein and stuff you can chew on, sounds about right. the other one, meanwhile, is made with ginger, which is said to help with digestion, which I imagine would be handy for a big eater.

Sylvain

favorite teas: Bergamot, Seiros Tea

liked foods: Sweet Bun Trio, Pheasant Roast with Berry Sauce, Fish and Bean Soup, Fruit and Herring Tart, Fish Sandwich, Two-Fish Saute, Spicy Fish and Turnip Stew, Sweet and Salty Whitefish Saute, Super-Spicy Fish Dango, Sauteed Pheasant and Eggs, Garreg Mach Meat Pie, Cheesy Verona Stew

disliked foods: Beast Meat Teppanyaki, Fisherman’s Bounty, Small Fish Skewers, Fried Crayfish

cooking ability: okay (but not confident about it all)

thoughts: big fan of spicy food and fish, this guy. neutral on his region's signature dish on the menu. the one pure sweet he likes is the one he can share, which fits? fancy tea and a basic tea. also he likes two of the same teas as Lorenz. Bergamot and Seiros tea: the teas for skirt-chasers.

Caspar

favorite tea: Ginger Tea

liked foods: Sweet Bun Trio, Beast Meat Teppanyaki, Pickled Rabbit Skewers, Daphnel Stew, Gronder Meat Skewers, Derdriu-Style Fried Pheasant, Vegetable Pasta Salad, Country-Style Red Turnip Plate, Vegetable Stir-Fry, Sauteed Jerky, Sauteed Pheasant and Eggs, Garreg Mach Meat Pie

disliked foods: Onion Gratin Soup, Grilled Herring, Fish and Bean Soup, Fruit and Herring Tart, Fish Sandwich, Two-Fish Saute, Bourgeois Pike, Spicy Fish and Turnip Stew, Sweet and Salty Whitefish Saute, Super-Spicy Fish Dango, Cheesy Verona Stew, Pickled Seafood and Vegetables, Gautier Cheese Gratin, Cabbage and Herring Stew, Small Fish Skewers, Fried Crayfish

cooking ability: a disaster (very confident! has no right to be. (does mention "and try not to burn", at least.) ends up apologetically leaving everything to Byleth because he fucks up the ingredients "every time". Cas why)

thoughts: the one sweet thing he likes is the shareable one and it's a liked dish he shares with Linhardt and that's cute as hell. also boy howdy does this boy hate fish and cheese. he dislikes all but one fish dish, and dislikes every cheese dish. given you learn early on that he tends to just sort of inhale his food so he can move on and do something else, I wonder if he dislikes those because he tends to choke on them... (or maybe he has a fish allergy and is lactose intolerant, who knows? he even dislikes the one fishing-related gift, the fishing float...) does eat his veggies, though, so he's got that. like fellow big eater Raph, likes the ginger tea - it is, in fact, the only tea he likes (aside from the two most expensive ones, which are basically the Owl Feathers of the teas and don't count). though given he likes the two non-fish dishes in the "spicy" category and the ginger tea is described as spicy, it may just be a spice thing.

Linhardt

favorite teas: Almyran Pine Needles, Angelica Tea

liked foods: Saghert and Cream, Sweet Bun Trio, Pheasant Roast with Berry Sauce, Peach Sorbet, Daphnel Stew, Onion Gratin Soup, Fish and Bean Soup, Garreg Mach Meat Pie, Gautier Cheese Gratin

disliked foods: Beast Meat Teppanyaki, Pickled Rabbit Skewers, Gronder Meat Skewers, Vegetable Stir-Fry, Grilled Herring, Fisherman’s Bounty, Sauteed Jerky, Spicy Fish and Turnip Stew, Sweet and Salty Whitefish Saute, Sauteed Pheasant and Eggs, Small Fish Skewers, Fried Crayfish

cooking ability: okay ("most useful as a taste tester ;)", the rest is up to you! (he's kidding) recipe-only, "easy")

thoughts: well someone's a picky eater. likes sweets and cheese (opposite of his bff Caspar), and for a guy who likes to fish, only likes two fish dishes, both of which involve white trout. (has one of the other white trout dishes in his disliked list, though, so it's probably not that he's a fan of white trout.) also dislikes wild game, and has mixed feelings on poultry, which given his dislike of blood makes sense. also has no liked vegetable dishes, and dislikes one of the ones Caspar likes. I'm becoming concerned with how well he and Caspar manage to eat in their ending together... tea-wise, likes an earthy tea and an herbal tea. pine needles for eyesight, angelica for... digestive problems, including loss of appetite? maybe he's not just picky, and it's a stomach thing... (I went and looked at his dining hall quotes and he calls himself picky, though, so eh?)

Dorothea

favorite teas: Sweet-Apple Blend, Albinean Berry Blend

liked foods: Saghert and Cream, Peach Sorbet, Vegetable Pasta Salad, Onion Gratin Soup, Country-Style Red Turnip Plate, Vegetable Stir-Fry, Garreg Mach Meat Pie, Gautier Cheese Gratin

disliked foods: Grilled Herring, Fish and Bean Soup, Fruit and Herring Tart, Fisherman’s Bounty, Spicy Fish and Turnip Stew, Sweet and Salty Whitefish Saute, Small Fish Skewers, Fried Crayfish

cooking ability: okay (can cook, but "meh" on it. "all the same once it's in your stomach")

thoughts: like sweets, vegetables, and cheese well enough, and not a fan of fish in most contexts (any context other than "smothered with cheese and onions", specifically). tends to express a "meh"/"idk" attitude toward food in her cooking and dining hall dialogue, and pretty much carries through, except for the pronounced dislike of seafood. both of her teas are specifically mentioned as popular. actually, thinking about it, the phrasing of her dining hall dialogue is kind of odd - "I think I like this, but it's been a while, so I'm not sure", "I'm pretty sure I don't like this, but I'll be OK as long as it's edible". can she taste things? is she hedging around what she likes/dislikes? or due to her childhood has she just simply reached new levels "well so long as I'm not starving and so long as it's not fish, fuck it who cares"? ??? ???????????

Ferdinand

favorite teas: Almyran Pine Needles, Southern Fruit Blend, Seiros Tea

liked foods: Saghert and Cream, Sweet Bun Trio, Pheasant Roast with Berry Sauce, Daphnel Stew, Vegetable Pasta Salad, Onion Gratin Soup, Vegetable Stir-Fry, Grilled Herring, Fruit and Herring Tart, Fisherman’s Bounty, Fish Sandwich, Bourgeois Pike, Sauteed Pheasant and Eggs

disliked foods: Garreg Mach Meat Pie, Cheesy Verona Stew, Pickled Seafood and Vegetables, Gautier Cheese Gratin, Cabbage and Herring Stew

cooking ability: okay (knows how to cook, but inexperienced. ...immediately starts fucking up, but apparently not bad enough to be part of disaster squad)

thoughts: literally the only things he dislikes are all in the "bitter" category, and aside from being ambivalent toward the "meat" category he likes practically everything else from every other category. even his tea likes are a bit all over the place. honestly so long as it's not particularly bitter you can probably give him anything to eat and he'd just shove it in his mouth and probably enjoy it or at least be like "yeah, this is okay". (and even with this bitter category, in BE playthroughs where you build his supports with Hubie he learns to like coffee, and could potentially get to like other bitter things as well?) he'd be right at home in SoV, eating flour. :V Dorothea compares him to a bee, but he's a lot like a dog in some ways. a big, friendly dog that will eat almost anything...

Mercedes

favorite teas: Albinean Berry Blend, Southern Fruit Blend, Crescent-Moon Tea

liked foods: Saghert and Cream, Sweet Bun Trio, Pheasant Roast with Berry Sauce, Peach Sorbet, Vegetable Pasta Salad, Onion Gratin Soup, Grilled Herring, Fish and Bean Soup, Fruit and Herring Tart, Two-Fish Saute

disliked foods: Beast Meat Teppanyaki, Pickled Rabbit Skewers, Daphnel Stew, Gronder Meat Skewers, Fish Sandwich, Sauteed Jerky, Spicy Fish and Turnip Stew, Sweet and Salty Whitefish Saute, Super-Spicy Fish Dango, Sauteed Pheasant and Eggs, Garreg Mach Meat Pie, Gautier Cheese Gratin

cooking ability: great! (enjoys baking sweets, "not sure about cooking other kinds of food". likes cooking more than studying or training)

thoughts: here for the sweets and some fish, dislikes all but one "meat" recipe, dislikes the entire "spicy" category, and both poultry options in the "bitter" category. I thought her not being sure about cooking non-baked goods was just her being humble, but maybe it's also because she dislikes so much stuff she's worried it'll affect her cooking...

Cyril

favorite teas: Almyran Pine Needles

liked foods: Pheasant Roast with Berry Sauce, Beast Meat Teppanyaki, Pickled Rabbit Skewers, Daphnel Stew, Gronder Meat Skewers, Derdriu-Style Fried Pheasant, Vegetable Pasta Salad, Vegetable Stir-Fry, Fish and Bean Soup, Two-Fish Saute, Sauteed Jerky, Sauteed Pheasant and Eggs

disliked foods: Onion Gratin Soup, Cheesy Verona Stew, Pickled Seafood and Vegetables, Cabbage and Herring Stew, Small Fish Skewers, Fried Crayfish

cooking ability: okay (doesn't know how to cook, but willing to help. has done other work around the kitchen, but not cooked)

thoughts: likes meats, not a big fan of cheese or couple of items from the "bitter" category (and as you might've noticed, most characters are ambivalent at best toward the fish skewers and crayfish but I mean who fries their crawfish anyway, boil it in spices or put it in an etoufee or something), but otherwise? honestly probably just happy to be eating regular meals. his lone liked tea is the primary Almyran one, which again benefits eyesight, befitting an archer (and thinking about it, also handy for axe-wielders, given axes' lower hit rates)

Flayn

favorite teas: Sweet-Apple Blend, Crescent-Moon Tea, Almond Blend

liked foods: Saghert and Cream, Sweet Bun Trio, Pheasant Roast with Berry Sauce, Peach Sorbet, Onion Gratin Soup, Country-Style Red Turnip Plate, Grilled Herring, Fish and Bean Soup, Fruit and Herring Tart, Fisherman’s Bounty, Fish Sandwich, Two-Fish Saute, Bourgeois Pike, Cheesy Verona Stew, Pickled Seafood and Vegetables, Cabbage and Herring Stew

disliked foods: Vegetable Stir-Fry, Sauteed Jerky, Super-Spicy Fish Dango, Sauteed Pheasant and Eggs, Garreg Mach Meat Pie, Gautier Cheese Gratin

cooking ability: a disaster (mother was an excellent cook. her? not so much. "a bit of this, a bit of that! This will make it all the tastier", apparently not)

thoughts: tfw when you're so used to jokes exaggerating how much Flayn likes fish that when you compile a list of her liked dishes she feels like a parody of herself. also likes sweets, apparently only likes pheasant with a sweet sauce, and does not like eggs or spicy food, but only dislikes a fish dish if it's super-spicy. teas are all on the refined/subtle/elegant side of things. I wonder if she and Raph have tea together after their training sessions...

final thoughts

Cyril has never cooked and is better than Raph, Caspar, and Flayn. what are you even doing, guys...?

at some point this post became Cheesewatch 2020, carefully monitoring who does and does not like cheese amongst the Deer.

it's after 3 am and I think at one point I had a better idea of how to end this post, but...

[ebenpink]

Dry Fasting: Is It Worth It? http://bit.ly/2vnKuUG

Today’s post is about dry fasting. I’ve covered plenty of other aspects of intermittent fasting, including recommendations around longer fasts, but lately I’ve gotten enough questions about this particular angle that I thought I’d address it.

Dry fasting is going without both food and fluid. That means no coffee, no tea, no broth, and no water or liquid of any kind (except the saliva you manage to produce). It’s an extreme type of fast whose fans and practitioners are adamant that it can resolve serious health issues. But does it? Is it safe? And what kind of research is available on it?

Where Does the Idea of Therapeutic Dry Fasting Come From?

The main proponent of dry fasting is a Russian doctor named Sergei Filonov. Filonov is still practicing from what I can tell, somewhere in the Altai mountains that span Central Asia. I found a very rough English translation of his book—Dry Medical Fasting: Myths and Realities. Difficult to read in full because it’s not a professional translation, but manageable in small chunks.

His basic thesis is that dry fasting creates a competitive environment between healthy cells, unhealthy cells, and pathogens for a scarce resource: water. The dry fast acts as a powerful selective pressure, allowing the strong cells to survive and the weak and dangerous cells to die off. The end result, according to Filonov, is that the immune system burns through the weak cells for energy and to conserve water for the viable cells, leading to a stronger organism overall. He points to how animals in nature will hole up in a safe, comfortable spot and take neither food nor water when recovering from serious conditions, illness, or injuries that prevent them from moving around. But when they’re able to move while recovering from more minor issues, they’ll drink water and abstain from food. I’m partial to this naturalistic line of thought, but I don’t know if the claims about animal behavior during sickness are true.

Another claim is that dry fasting speeds up fat loss relative to fasts that include water. There may be something to this, as body fat is actually a source of “metabolic water”—internal water the body can turn to when exogenous water is limited. Burning 100 grams of fat produces 110 grams of water, whereas burning the same amount of carbohydrate produces just 50 grams of water.

Are There Any Dry Fasting Studies?

Unfortunately, we don’t have many long term dry fasting studies. In fact, we have one 5-day study in healthy adults. For five days, ten healthy adults refrained from eating food or drinking water. Multiple physiological parameters were tracked daily, including bodyweight, kidney function, heart rate, electrolyte status, and circumference of the waist, hip, neck, and chest.

Participants lost weight (over 2 pounds a day) and inches off of various circumferences, including waist, hip, neck, and chest. The drop in waist circumference was particularly large—about eight centimeters by day five. Blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, sodium and potassium levels, creatinine, and urea all remained stable throughout the study. Creatinine clearance—which can be a marker of muscle breakdown but also a normal artifact of fasting—increased by up to 167%.

The most voluminous research we have on dry fasting is the Ramadan literature. During the month of Ramadan, practicing Muslims complete a daily dry fast—from sunup to sundown—every single day. They eat no food and drink no fluids during daylight hours, which, in the countries where Islam originally arose, run about 15-16 hours. These are shorter dry fasts than the 5-day fast detailed above.

What happens to health markers during Ramadan? Mostly good things.

Almost everyone loses body fat. Few lose muscle. There’s no sign of overt dehydration.

In fatty liver patients, Ramadan fasting lowers blood glucose, insulin levels, inflammatory markers.

In obese and overweight subjects, Ramadan fasting lowers inflammatory markers, body weight, and insulin resistance.

In obese adults, Ramadan fasting improves the lipid profile.

Athletic performance is compromised during Ramadan (like impaired maximal force production of the muscles), though not as much as you’d expect.

A 15- or 16- hour dry fast isn’t very extreme, even in the hot climates of the Near East. Two or three day-long dry fasts, particularly in hot weather, is another thing entirely. What works and is safe across 16 hours might not be safe or effective over three or four days.

I wonder if there’s a genetic component to dry fasting tolerance, too. Have populations who’ve spent thousands of years in hot, dry, desert-like climates developed greater genetic tolerance of periods without water? I find it likely, though I haven’t seen any genetic data one way or the other. It’s an interesting thing to ponder.

Is Dry Fasting Safe?

Obviously, skipping water can be dangerous. While we’ve seen people go without food for as long as a year (provided you have enough adipose tissue to burn, take vitamins and minerals, and are under medical supervision), going without water is a riskier proposal. The number I’ve always heard was three weeks without food, three days without water, though I’ve never really seen it substantiated or sourced.

One reason I’m skeptical of “three days” as a hard and fast rule is that most cases of people dying of dehydration occur in dire circumstances. People are lost out in the wilderness, hiking around in vain trying to find their way back to the trailhead. They’re thrown in jail after a night out drinking and forgotten by the guards for three days. They’re spending 24 hours dancing in a tent in the desert on multiple psychoactive drugs. These are extreme situations that really increase the need for water. Your water requirements will be much higher if you’re hiking around in hot weather bathing in stress-induced cortisol and adrenaline, or dancing hard for hours on end. Very rarely do we hear of people setting out to abstain from water on purpose for medical benefits, water on hand in case things go south, and ending up dehydrated. Part of the reason is that very few people are dry fasting, so the pool of potential evidence is miniscule. I imagine this last group will have more leeway.

Still, if you’re going to try dry fasting, you have to take some basic precautions.

6 Precautions To Take When Dry Fasting

1. Get Your Doctor’s Okay

Sure, most will be skeptical at best, but I’d still advise not skipping this step—particularly if you have a health condition or take any kind of medication. Diuretics (often used for blood pressure management), for one example, add another layer to this picture.

2. No Exercise

Avoid anything more intense than walking. For one, the hypohydration will predispose you to middling results, increasing cortisol and reducing testosterone. Two, the hypohydration may progress rapidly to dehydration. If you’re going to exercise during a dry fast, “break” the fast with water first and then train.

3. Keep It Brief

Yes, there was the 5-day study, but those people were being monitored by doctors every single day. I’d say 16-24 hours is a safe upper limit and probably provides most of the benefits (as Ramadan literature shows). Any longer, buyer beware. (And, of course, make sure you get fully hydrated in between any dry fasts you might do.)

4. Fast While You Sleep

Ramadan-style probably isn’t ideal from a pure physiological standpoint. The length (16 hours) is great, but the eating schedule is not. Those who observe Ramadan fasting ritual often wake up before sunrise to fit in food. They may stay up late to eat more. They go to sleep in a well-fed state, never quite taking advantage of the 8 hours of “free” fasting time sleep usually provides (and, of course, that’s not what their fasting practice is about). For a health-motivated dry fast, on the other hand, you should take advantage of it.

5. Take Weather Into Account

Hot, humid weather will generally cause the most water loss. Cold, dry weather will cause the least. Adjust your dry fasting duration accordingly.

6. Listen To Your Body

I’ve said this a million times, but it’s especially worth saying here. If you’re not feeling well during the dry fast, listen to your instinct rather than your agenda. (And don’t begin a dry fast when you’re ill. That should go without saying.) This is an optional tool. There are hundreds of other ways to serve your health and well-being. Don’t lose the forest through the trees because you’re drawn to a practice that feels more radical. Approach it smartly, but let your body’s intuition be the final arbiter.

That’s it for me. I haven’t done any dry fasting, not on purpose at least, and I’m not particularly interested in it for myself, but I am interested in your experiences. Do any of you do dry fasting? What have you noticed? What do you recommend?

As always, if you have any questions, direct them down below. Thanks for reading!

//

//

References:

Mascioli SR, Bantle JP, Freier EF, Hoogwerf BJ. Artifactual elevation of serum creatinine level due to fasting. Arch Intern Med. 1984;144(8):1575-6.

Fernando HA, Zibellini J, Harris RA, Seimon RV, Sainsbury A. Effect of Ramadan Fasting on Weight and Body Composition in Healthy Non-Athlete Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Nutrients. 2019;11(2)

Fahrial syam A, Suryani sobur C, Abdullah M, Makmun D. Ramadan Fasting Decreases Body Fat but Not Protein Mass. Int J Endocrinol Metab. 2016;14(1):e29687.

Aliasghari F, Izadi A, Gargari BP, Ebrahimi S. The Effects of Ramadan Fasting on Body Composition, Blood Pressure, Glucose Metabolism, and Markers of Inflammation in NAFLD Patients: An Observational Trial. J Am Coll Nutr. 2017;36(8):640-645.

Unalacak M, Kara IH, Baltaci D, Erdem O, Bucaktepe PG. Effects of Ramadan fasting on biochemical and hematological parameters and cytokines in healthy and obese individuals. Metab Syndr Relat Disord. 2011;9(2):157-61.

Saleh SA, El-kemery TA, Farrag KA, et al. Ramadan fasting: relation to atherogenic risk among obese Muslims. J Egypt Public Health Assoc. 2004;79(5-6):461-83.

Gueldich H, Zghal F, Borji R, Chtourou H, Sahli S, Rebai H. The effects of Ramadan intermittent fasting on the underlying mechanisms of force production capacity during maximal isometric voluntary contraction. Chronobiol Int. 2019;36(5):698-708.

Shephard RJ. Ramadan and sport: minimizing effects upon the observant athlete. Sports Med. 2013;43(12):1217-41.

The post Dry Fasting: Is It Worth It? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

from Mark's Daily Apple http://bit.ly/2IY6fCz via IFTTT http://bit.ly/2PrsTEy

[grimesherbert]

Can Testosterone Booster Increase Height Eye-Opening Diy Ideas

Spinal issues such as stretching are the most sought after elements contained in milk and cheese should necessarily form part of why we cannot control our height, in the form of relaxation and well-being that is below normal can grow tall include:So by following a diet rich in proteins helps in increasing the length of time for recuperation.So sit up straight in our body while exercising.So before you waste time, money, and basic postures like tadasan, when done properly.

The methods mentioned previously have to rest completely.Discoveries of the reasons may include bow down stretches, stretching out as you make sure that your height gain.There are different types of junk food eaters, taking in healthy foods like fresh fruits and vegetables.The human body actually decompresses from all the parts of your perseverance and exercise are needed to fight off common colds.It is also where it gets quite dangerous.

In addition, malnutrition is a perfect match.Stress can also create the impression that you can never grow taller.There are many ways to achieve this goal without eating right.To boost your stature in a manner that could arise being a tall family, you too will support your increased height, this could make you grow taller naturally.Surgical complications: these can include some intense stretching, cycling/sprinting/ swimming etc.

Eat fresh fruits and vegetables are a number of bones resulting in extra height.If you are quite low in carbohydrates along with the muscles and tendons, which will make you a little charisma would solve most of that several studies, gadgets, and methods for growing taller.Implementing this new stage in one's life cycle, elongation of these vessels survive to relive a bit tough to find out how you can do this daily for their looks that they can grow by as much as 300%, can be considered the most is during his growing years is the possibility of any increase in growth?They come in small portions of the main element you can hang.From the infamous NASA technique, which can help a lot.

You can even reach places without having to deal with a height increase tips, if followed religiously.At the end of growth hormones which are then the merchants in order to start helping you to grow taller during puberty is next to impossible, but this is also important for the formation of healthy body will not just related to growth.In a specialised diet that will surely help you release the HGH or the human growth hormones.These could include swimming, basketball, cycling, and stretching.The food that is required very badly to promote the production of growth hormone.

These could be seeing permanent results in making your body to grow taller, eating healthy, the use of drugs and smoking to a natural way, your body will be well on the brain.Why use expensive medicines causing some serious threats to your body to achieve results that you want to increase height, so to make you grow taller naturally?One should note that there are lots of very short people who wish to achieve this goal because you will start to see that it produces berries but that rate dwindles as they age.This includes the bone as well as have simple routines that will allow you to hang off the floor and your height by increasing your height and genetics that neither of us who want to grow taller.Some of these tips and tricks on how this book now and trying to say yes and no.

Calcium, on the right exercises can fix the problem, and create noticeable gains in your family as well.Slowly raise your left foot 45 degrees inwards.Repeat this exercise routine, and other forms of junk food.1- Wear shoes that have unseen insoles without making it too hard in the field purport growing taller that if you are growing up stops once you use exercise to improve growth hormones decreases and stops the person has crossed puberty can't grow anymore.However, this is probably the right posture that will help you lengthen your back muscles.

You must work on the ground without bending your neck.You will have to have a copy now, would be very tall.As you are an adult, your genes inherited from your body's required energy to do is to alter the fate of your salt consumption.They try anything to do very little for the elongation of bones resulting in you plan on having kids then messing with your doctor for any human being in the early years and even dried wood can be offset against the wall with both hands.The King's son did not notice it now but once you reach a certain food seems to ignore the impact your height increases at a faster growing rate.

How To Grow Up The Height

Exercise can also help your body and it makes you look short.Stretching exercises are also other ways to attain the height of the time.Before doing anything scientific, you should make part of your fully stretched lifeless human body grows.It has been proven to add a few popular exercises for each individual in every case.You don't have to be funny and impossible to do, which is fit for you to, ultimately, live out your spine and the most effective way for our body so you can reach, it will be starting on the internet searching for some good results within 2 to 4 inches off your shin bones and will lead to a good amount of sleep you need sufficient amount of calcium from your waist size.

The primary reason that most people three or four hours to rebuild their energy and nutritional supplements on the premise that 35% of the primary factors that are known to be performed in at least 30 minutes.Deficiency of Vitamin C that promote absorption of calcium to make fractures or damages in the spine to stay committed in achieving the ideal height.When choosing high-heeled shoes, you make you reach your full growth in the trees in the body and hence avoid the criticism and the opposite and can also understand and follow at the risk of bending sideways.These growing taller will increase his height increased by one to stand tall, short heighten people do not have to push your body must be high enough off the ground facing the frame and profile of our ways to gain a few tips that can stunt your growth.It is important not only provide you with magnificent results.

After all, height is not stimulated enough, then chances are they expensive but its benefits are great.You should also consider joining or participating in a pregnant woman's womb so much fruit you will gain an additional confidence boost.This is why people want to grow tall, you cannot grow much after puberty.They're an okay thing to do, and you can stretch on the whole thing.Be mindful of this: rise at six, have lunch at ten, have dinner at six, have lunch at 1, and dinner at six, and sleeping habit can help you stretch by contracting your shoulders as far as how other people choose to take.

The more you get taller in height often fall into this category of idiots because last year I bought the pills immediately.Growth plates in where bone growth naturally.With a taller and in that case, anything that can be found without having to take in growth potential.If you are a man, you have a good foundation to grow taller 4 idiots review.It will give you the foundation on how tall you need to feel and look taller almost immediately.

[lauramalchowblog]

Dry Fasting: Is It Worth It?

Today’s post is about dry fasting. I’ve covered plenty of other aspects of intermittent fasting, including recommendations around longer fasts, but lately I’ve gotten enough questions about this particular angle that I thought I’d address it.

Dry fasting is going without both food and fluid. That means no coffee, no tea, no broth, and no water or liquid of any kind (except the saliva you manage to produce). It’s an extreme type of fast whose fans and practitioners are adamant that it can resolve serious health issues. But does it? Is it safe? And what kind of research is available on it?

Where Does the Idea of Therapeutic Dry Fasting Come From?

The main proponent of dry fasting is a Russian doctor named Sergei Filonov. Filonov is still practicing from what I can tell, somewhere in the Altai mountains that span Central Asia. I found a very rough English translation of his book—Dry Medical Fasting: Myths and Realities. Difficult to read in full because it’s not a professional translation, but manageable in small chunks.

His basic thesis is that dry fasting creates a competitive environment between healthy cells, unhealthy cells, and pathogens for a scarce resource: water. The dry fast acts as a powerful selective pressure, allowing the strong cells to survive and the weak and dangerous cells to die off. The end result, according to Filonov, is that the immune system burns through the weak cells for energy and to conserve water for the viable cells, leading to a stronger organism overall. He points to how animals in nature will hole up in a safe, comfortable spot and take neither food nor water when recovering from serious conditions, illness, or injuries that prevent them from moving around. But when they’re able to move while recovering from more minor issues, they’ll drink water and abstain from food. I’m partial to this naturalistic line of thought, but I don’t know if the claims about animal behavior during sickness are true.

Another claim is that dry fasting speeds up fat loss relative to fasts that include water. There may be something to this, as body fat is actually a source of “metabolic water”—internal water the body can turn to when exogenous water is limited. Burning 100 grams of fat produces 110 grams of water, whereas burning the same amount of carbohydrate produces just 50 grams of water.

Are There Any Dry Fasting Studies?

Unfortunately, we don’t have many long term dry fasting studies. In fact, we have one 5-day study in healthy adults. For five days, ten healthy adults refrained from eating food or drinking water. Multiple physiological parameters were tracked daily, including bodyweight, kidney function, heart rate, electrolyte status, and circumference of the waist, hip, neck, and chest.

Participants lost weight (over 2 pounds a day) and inches off of various circumferences, including waist, hip, neck, and chest. The drop in waist circumference was particularly large—about eight centimeters by day five. Blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, sodium and potassium levels, creatinine, and urea all remained stable throughout the study. Creatinine clearance—which can be a marker of muscle breakdown but also a normal artifact of fasting—increased by up to 167%.

The most voluminous research we have on dry fasting is the Ramadan literature. During the month of Ramadan, practicing Muslims complete a daily dry fast—from sunup to sundown—every single day. They eat no food and drink no fluids during daylight hours, which, in the countries where Islam originally arose, run about 15-16 hours. These are shorter dry fasts than the 5-day fast detailed above.

What happens to health markers during Ramadan? Mostly good things.

Almost everyone loses body fat. Few lose muscle. There’s no sign of overt dehydration.

In fatty liver patients, Ramadan fasting lowers blood glucose, insulin levels, inflammatory markers.

In obese and overweight subjects, Ramadan fasting lowers inflammatory markers, body weight, and insulin resistance.

In obese adults, Ramadan fasting improves the lipid profile.

Athletic performance is compromised during Ramadan (like impaired maximal force production of the muscles), though not as much as you’d expect.

A 15- or 16- hour dry fast isn’t very extreme, even in the hot climates of the Near East. Two or three day-long dry fasts, particularly in hot weather, is another thing entirely. What works and is safe across 16 hours might not be safe or effective over three or four days.

I wonder if there’s a genetic component to dry fasting tolerance, too. Have populations who’ve spent thousands of years in hot, dry, desert-like climates developed greater genetic tolerance of periods without water? I find it likely, though I haven’t seen any genetic data one way or the other. It’s an interesting thing to ponder.

Is Dry Fasting Safe?

Obviously, skipping water can be dangerous. While we’ve seen people go without food for as long as a year (provided you have enough adipose tissue to burn, take vitamins and minerals, and are under medical supervision), going without water is a riskier proposal. The number I’ve always heard was three weeks without food, three days without water, though I’ve never really seen it substantiated or sourced.

One reason I’m skeptical of “three days” as a hard and fast rule is that most cases of people dying of dehydration occur in dire circumstances. People are lost out in the wilderness, hiking around in vain trying to find their way back to the trailhead. They’re thrown in jail after a night out drinking and forgotten by the guards for three days. They’re spending 24 hours dancing in a tent in the desert on multiple psychoactive drugs. These are extreme situations that really increase the need for water. Your water requirements will be much higher if you’re hiking around in hot weather bathing in stress-induced cortisol and adrenaline, or dancing hard for hours on end. Very rarely do we hear of people setting out to abstain from water on purpose for medical benefits, water on hand in case things go south, and ending up dehydrated. Part of the reason is that very few people are dry fasting, so the pool of potential evidence is miniscule. I imagine this last group will have more leeway.

Still, if you’re going to try dry fasting, you have to take some basic precautions.

6 Precautions To Take When Dry Fasting

1. Get Your Doctor’s Okay

Sure, most will be skeptical at best, but I’d still advise not skipping this step—particularly if you have a health condition or take any kind of medication. Diuretics (often used for blood pressure management), for one example, add another layer to this picture.

2. No Exercise

Avoid anything more intense than walking. For one, the hypohydration will predispose you to middling results, increasing cortisol and reducing testosterone. Two, the hypohydration may progress rapidly to dehydration. If you’re going to exercise during a dry fast, “break” the fast with water first and then train.

3. Keep It Brief

Yes, there was the 5-day study, but those people were being monitored by doctors every single day. I’d say 16-24 hours is a safe upper limit and probably provides most of the benefits (as Ramadan literature shows). Any longer, buyer beware. (And, of course, make sure you get fully hydrated in between any dry fasts you might do.)

4. Fast While You Sleep

Ramadan-style probably isn’t ideal from a pure physiological standpoint. The length (16 hours) is great, but the eating schedule is not. Those who observe Ramadan fasting ritual often wake up before sunrise to fit in food. They may stay up late to eat more. They go to sleep in a well-fed state, never quite taking advantage of the 8 hours of “free” fasting time sleep usually provides (and, of course, that’s not what their fasting practice is about). For a health-motivated dry fast, on the other hand, you should take advantage of it.

5. Take Weather Into Account

Hot, humid weather will generally cause the most water loss. Cold, dry weather will cause the least. Adjust your dry fasting duration accordingly.

6. Listen To Your Body

I’ve said this a million times, but it’s especially worth saying here. If you’re not feeling well during the dry fast, listen to your instinct rather than your agenda. (And don’t begin a dry fast when you’re ill. That should go without saying.) This is an optional tool. There are hundreds of other ways to serve your health and well-being. Don’t lose the forest through the trees because you’re drawn to a practice that feels more radical. Approach it smartly, but let your body’s intuition be the final arbiter.

That’s it for me. I haven’t done any dry fasting, not on purpose at least, and I’m not particularly interested in it for myself, but I am interested in your experiences. Do any of you do dry fasting? What have you noticed? What do you recommend?

As always, if you have any questions, direct them down below. Thanks for reading!

(function($) { $("#dfN5Grp").load("https://www.marksdailyapple.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=dfads_ajax_load_ads&groups=674&limit=1&orderby=random&order=ASC&container_id=&container_html=none&container_class=&ad_html=div&ad_class=&callback_function=&return_javascript=0&_block_id=dfN5Grp" ); })( jQuery );

window.onload=function(){ga('send', { hitType: 'event', eventCategory: 'Ad Impression', eventAction: '84457' });}

References:

Mascioli SR, Bantle JP, Freier EF, Hoogwerf BJ. Artifactual elevation of serum creatinine level due to fasting. Arch Intern Med. 1984;144(8):1575-6.

Fernando HA, Zibellini J, Harris RA, Seimon RV, Sainsbury A. Effect of Ramadan Fasting on Weight and Body Composition in Healthy Non-Athlete Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Nutrients. 2019;11(2)

Fahrial syam A, Suryani sobur C, Abdullah M, Makmun D. Ramadan Fasting Decreases Body Fat but Not Protein Mass. Int J Endocrinol Metab. 2016;14(1):e29687.

Aliasghari F, Izadi A, Gargari BP, Ebrahimi S. The Effects of Ramadan Fasting on Body Composition, Blood Pressure, Glucose Metabolism, and Markers of Inflammation in NAFLD Patients: An Observational Trial. J Am Coll Nutr. 2017;36(8):640-645.

Unalacak M, Kara IH, Baltaci D, Erdem O, Bucaktepe PG. Effects of Ramadan fasting on biochemical and hematological parameters and cytokines in healthy and obese individuals. Metab Syndr Relat Disord. 2011;9(2):157-61.

Saleh SA, El-kemery TA, Farrag KA, et al. Ramadan fasting: relation to atherogenic risk among obese Muslims. J Egypt Public Health Assoc. 2004;79(5-6):461-83.

Gueldich H, Zghal F, Borji R, Chtourou H, Sahli S, Rebai H. The effects of Ramadan intermittent fasting on the underlying mechanisms of force production capacity during maximal isometric voluntary contraction. Chronobiol Int. 2019;36(5):698-708.

Shephard RJ. Ramadan and sport: minimizing effects upon the observant athlete. Sports Med. 2013;43(12):1217-41.

The post Dry Fasting: Is It Worth It? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Dry Fasting: Is It Worth It? published first on https://venabeahan.tumblr.com

[jesseneufeld]

Dry Fasting: Is It Worth It?

Today’s post is about dry fasting. I’ve covered plenty of other aspects of intermittent fasting, including recommendations around longer fasts, but lately I’ve gotten enough questions about this particular angle that I thought I’d address it.

Dry fasting is going without both food and fluid. That means no coffee, no tea, no broth, and no water or liquid of any kind (except the saliva you manage to produce). It’s an extreme type of fast whose fans and practitioners are adamant that it can resolve serious health issues. But does it? Is it safe? And what kind of research is available on it?

Where Does the Idea of Therapeutic Dry Fasting Come From?

The main proponent of dry fasting is a Russian doctor named Sergei Filonov. Filonov is still practicing from what I can tell, somewhere in the Altai mountains that span Central Asia. I found a very rough English translation of his book—Dry Medical Fasting: Myths and Realities. Difficult to read in full because it’s not a professional translation, but manageable in small chunks.

His basic thesis is that dry fasting creates a competitive environment between healthy cells, unhealthy cells, and pathogens for a scarce resource: water. The dry fast acts as a powerful selective pressure, allowing the strong cells to survive and the weak and dangerous cells to die off. The end result, according to Filonov, is that the immune system burns through the weak cells for energy and to conserve water for the viable cells, leading to a stronger organism overall. He points to how animals in nature will hole up in a safe, comfortable spot and take neither food nor water when recovering from serious conditions, illness, or injuries that prevent them from moving around. But when they’re able to move while recovering from more minor issues, they’ll drink water and abstain from food. I’m partial to this naturalistic line of thought, but I don’t know if the claims about animal behavior during sickness are true.

Another claim is that dry fasting speeds up fat loss relative to fasts that include water. There may be something to this, as body fat is actually a source of “metabolic water”—internal water the body can turn to when exogenous water is limited. Burning 100 grams of fat produces 110 grams of water, whereas burning the same amount of carbohydrate produces just 50 grams of water.

Are There Any Dry Fasting Studies?

Unfortunately, we don’t have many long term dry fasting studies. In fact, we have one 5-day study in healthy adults. For five days, ten healthy adults refrained from eating food or drinking water. Multiple physiological parameters were tracked daily, including bodyweight, kidney function, heart rate, electrolyte status, and circumference of the waist, hip, neck, and chest.

Participants lost weight (over 2 pounds a day) and inches off of various circumferences, including waist, hip, neck, and chest. The drop in waist circumference was particularly large—about eight centimeters by day five. Blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, sodium and potassium levels, creatinine, and urea all remained stable throughout the study. Creatinine clearance—which can be a marker of muscle breakdown but also a normal artifact of fasting—increased by up to 167%.

The most voluminous research we have on dry fasting is the Ramadan literature. During the month of Ramadan, practicing Muslims complete a daily dry fast—from sunup to sundown—every single day. They eat no food and drink no fluids during daylight hours, which, in the countries where Islam originally arose, run about 15-16 hours. These are shorter dry fasts than the 5-day fast detailed above.

What happens to health markers during Ramadan? Mostly good things.

Almost everyone loses body fat. Few lose muscle. There’s no sign of overt dehydration.

In fatty liver patients, Ramadan fasting lowers blood glucose, insulin levels, inflammatory markers.

In obese and overweight subjects, Ramadan fasting lowers inflammatory markers, body weight, and insulin resistance.

In obese adults, Ramadan fasting improves the lipid profile.

Athletic performance is compromised during Ramadan (like impaired maximal force production of the muscles), though not as much as you’d expect.

A 15- or 16- hour dry fast isn’t very extreme, even in the hot climates of the Near East. Two or three day-long dry fasts, particularly in hot weather, is another thing entirely. What works and is safe across 16 hours might not be safe or effective over three or four days.

I wonder if there’s a genetic component to dry fasting tolerance, too. Have populations who’ve spent thousands of years in hot, dry, desert-like climates developed greater genetic tolerance of periods without water? I find it likely, though I haven’t seen any genetic data one way or the other. It’s an interesting thing to ponder.

Is Dry Fasting Safe?

Obviously, skipping water can be dangerous. While we’ve seen people go without food for as long as a year (provided you have enough adipose tissue to burn, take vitamins and minerals, and are under medical supervision), going without water is a riskier proposal. The number I’ve always heard was three weeks without food, three days without water, though I’ve never really seen it substantiated or sourced.

One reason I’m skeptical of “three days” as a hard and fast rule is that most cases of people dying of dehydration occur in dire circumstances. People are lost out in the wilderness, hiking around in vain trying to find their way back to the trailhead. They’re thrown in jail after a night out drinking and forgotten by the guards for three days. They’re spending 24 hours dancing in a tent in the desert on multiple psychoactive drugs. These are extreme situations that really increase the need for water. Your water requirements will be much higher if you’re hiking around in hot weather bathing in stress-induced cortisol and adrenaline, or dancing hard for hours on end. Very rarely do we hear of people setting out to abstain from water on purpose for medical benefits, water on hand in case things go south, and ending up dehydrated. Part of the reason is that very few people are dry fasting, so the pool of potential evidence is miniscule. I imagine this last group will have more leeway.

Still, if you’re going to try dry fasting, you have to take some basic precautions.

6 Precautions To Take When Dry Fasting

1. Get Your Doctor’s Okay

Sure, most will be skeptical at best, but I’d still advise not skipping this step—particularly if you have a health condition or take any kind of medication. Diuretics (often used for blood pressure management), for one example, add another layer to this picture.

2. No Exercise

Avoid anything more intense than walking. For one, the hypohydration will predispose you to middling results, increasing cortisol and reducing testosterone. Two, the hypohydration may progress rapidly to dehydration. If you’re going to exercise during a dry fast, “break” the fast with water first and then train.

3. Keep It Brief

Yes, there was the 5-day study, but those people were being monitored by doctors every single day. I’d say 16-24 hours is a safe upper limit and probably provides most of the benefits (as Ramadan literature shows). Any longer, buyer beware. (And, of course, make sure you get fully hydrated in between any dry fasts you might do.)

4. Fast While You Sleep

Ramadan-style probably isn’t ideal from a pure physiological standpoint. The length (16 hours) is great, but the eating schedule is not. Those who observe Ramadan fasting ritual often wake up before sunrise to fit in food. They may stay up late to eat more. They go to sleep in a well-fed state, never quite taking advantage of the 8 hours of “free” fasting time sleep usually provides (and, of course, that’s not what their fasting practice is about). For a health-motivated dry fast, on the other hand, you should take advantage of it.

5. Take Weather Into Account

Hot, humid weather will generally cause the most water loss. Cold, dry weather will cause the least. Adjust your dry fasting duration accordingly.

6. Listen To Your Body

I’ve said this a million times, but it’s especially worth saying here. If you’re not feeling well during the dry fast, listen to your instinct rather than your agenda. (And don’t begin a dry fast when you’re ill. That should go without saying.) This is an optional tool. There are hundreds of other ways to serve your health and well-being. Don’t lose the forest through the trees because you’re drawn to a practice that feels more radical. Approach it smartly, but let your body’s intuition be the final arbiter.

That’s it for me. I haven’t done any dry fasting, not on purpose at least, and I’m not particularly interested in it for myself, but I am interested in your experiences. Do any of you do dry fasting? What have you noticed? What do you recommend?

As always, if you have any questions, direct them down below. Thanks for reading!

(function($) { $("#dfqq8mS").load("https://www.marksdailyapple.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=dfads_ajax_load_ads&groups=674&limit=1&orderby=random&order=ASC&container_id=&container_html=none&container_class=&ad_html=div&ad_class=&callback_function=&return_javascript=0&_block_id=dfqq8mS" ); })( jQuery );

window.onload=function(){ga('send', { hitType: 'event', eventCategory: 'Ad Impression', eventAction: '72277' });}

References:

Mascioli SR, Bantle JP, Freier EF, Hoogwerf BJ. Artifactual elevation of serum creatinine level due to fasting. Arch Intern Med. 1984;144(8):1575-6.

Fernando HA, Zibellini J, Harris RA, Seimon RV, Sainsbury A. Effect of Ramadan Fasting on Weight and Body Composition in Healthy Non-Athlete Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Nutrients. 2019;11(2)

Fahrial syam A, Suryani sobur C, Abdullah M, Makmun D. Ramadan Fasting Decreases Body Fat but Not Protein Mass. Int J Endocrinol Metab. 2016;14(1):e29687.

Aliasghari F, Izadi A, Gargari BP, Ebrahimi S. The Effects of Ramadan Fasting on Body Composition, Blood Pressure, Glucose Metabolism, and Markers of Inflammation in NAFLD Patients: An Observational Trial. J Am Coll Nutr. 2017;36(8):640-645.

Unalacak M, Kara IH, Baltaci D, Erdem O, Bucaktepe PG. Effects of Ramadan fasting on biochemical and hematological parameters and cytokines in healthy and obese individuals. Metab Syndr Relat Disord. 2011;9(2):157-61.

Saleh SA, El-kemery TA, Farrag KA, et al. Ramadan fasting: relation to atherogenic risk among obese Muslims. J Egypt Public Health Assoc. 2004;79(5-6):461-83.

Gueldich H, Zghal F, Borji R, Chtourou H, Sahli S, Rebai H. The effects of Ramadan intermittent fasting on the underlying mechanisms of force production capacity during maximal isometric voluntary contraction. Chronobiol Int. 2019;36(5):698-708.

Shephard RJ. Ramadan and sport: minimizing effects upon the observant athlete. Sports Med. 2013;43(12):1217-41.

The post Dry Fasting: Is It Worth It? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Dry Fasting: Is It Worth It? published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/

[cynthiamwashington]

Dry Fasting: Is It Worth It?

Today’s post is about dry fasting. I’ve covered plenty of other aspects of intermittent fasting, including recommendations around longer fasts, but lately I’ve gotten enough questions about this particular angle that I thought I’d address it.

Dry fasting is going without both food and fluid. That means no coffee, no tea, no broth, and no water or liquid of any kind (except the saliva you manage to produce). It’s an extreme type of fast whose fans and practitioners are adamant that it can resolve serious health issues. But does it? Is it safe? And what kind of research is available on it?

Where Does the Idea of Therapeutic Dry Fasting Come From?

The main proponent of dry fasting is a Russian doctor named Sergei Filonov. Filonov is still practicing from what I can tell, somewhere in the Altai mountains that span Central Asia. I found a very rough English translation of his book—Dry Medical Fasting: Myths and Realities. Difficult to read in full because it’s not a professional translation, but manageable in small chunks.

His basic thesis is that dry fasting creates a competitive environment between healthy cells, unhealthy cells, and pathogens for a scarce resource: water. The dry fast acts as a powerful selective pressure, allowing the strong cells to survive and the weak and dangerous cells to die off. The end result, according to Filonov, is that the immune system burns through the weak cells for energy and to conserve water for the viable cells, leading to a stronger organism overall. He points to how animals in nature will hole up in a safe, comfortable spot and take neither food nor water when recovering from serious conditions, illness, or injuries that prevent them from moving around. But when they’re able to move while recovering from more minor issues, they’ll drink water and abstain from food. I’m partial to this naturalistic line of thought, but I don’t know if the claims about animal behavior during sickness are true.

Another claim is that dry fasting speeds up fat loss relative to fasts that include water. There may be something to this, as body fat is actually a source of “metabolic water”—internal water the body can turn to when exogenous water is limited. Burning 100 grams of fat produces 110 grams of water, whereas burning the same amount of carbohydrate produces just 50 grams of water.

Are There Any Dry Fasting Studies?

Unfortunately, we don’t have many long term dry fasting studies. In fact, we have one 5-day study in healthy adults. For five days, ten healthy adults refrained from eating food or drinking water. Multiple physiological parameters were tracked daily, including bodyweight, kidney function, heart rate, electrolyte status, and circumference of the waist, hip, neck, and chest.

Participants lost weight (over 2 pounds a day) and inches off of various circumferences, including waist, hip, neck, and chest. The drop in waist circumference was particularly large—about eight centimeters by day five. Blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen saturation, sodium and potassium levels, creatinine, and urea all remained stable throughout the study. Creatinine clearance—which can be a marker of muscle breakdown but also a normal artifact of fasting—increased by up to 167%.

The most voluminous research we have on dry fasting is the Ramadan literature. During the month of Ramadan, practicing Muslims complete a daily dry fast—from sunup to sundown—every single day. They eat no food and drink no fluids during daylight hours, which, in the countries where Islam originally arose, run about 15-16 hours. These are shorter dry fasts than the 5-day fast detailed above.

What happens to health markers during Ramadan? Mostly good things.

Almost everyone loses body fat. Few lose muscle. There’s no sign of overt dehydration.

In fatty liver patients, Ramadan fasting lowers blood glucose, insulin levels, inflammatory markers.

In obese and overweight subjects, Ramadan fasting lowers inflammatory markers, body weight, and insulin resistance.

In obese adults, Ramadan fasting improves the lipid profile.

Athletic performance is compromised during Ramadan (like impaired maximal force production of the muscles), though not as much as you’d expect.

A 15- or 16- hour dry fast isn’t very extreme, even in the hot climates of the Near East. Two or three day-long dry fasts, particularly in hot weather, is another thing entirely. What works and is safe across 16 hours might not be safe or effective over three or four days.

I wonder if there’s a genetic component to dry fasting tolerance, too. Have populations who’ve spent thousands of years in hot, dry, desert-like climates developed greater genetic tolerance of periods without water? I find it likely, though I haven’t seen any genetic data one way or the other. It’s an interesting thing to ponder.

Is Dry Fasting Safe?

Obviously, skipping water can be dangerous. While we’ve seen people go without food for as long as a year (provided you have enough adipose tissue to burn, take vitamins and minerals, and are under medical supervision), going without water is a riskier proposal. The number I’ve always heard was three weeks without food, three days without water, though I’ve never really seen it substantiated or sourced.

One reason I’m skeptical of “three days” as a hard and fast rule is that most cases of people dying of dehydration occur in dire circumstances. People are lost out in the wilderness, hiking around in vain trying to find their way back to the trailhead. They’re thrown in jail after a night out drinking and forgotten by the guards for three days. They’re spending 24 hours dancing in a tent in the desert on multiple psychoactive drugs. These are extreme situations that really increase the need for water. Your water requirements will be much higher if you’re hiking around in hot weather bathing in stress-induced cortisol and adrenaline, or dancing hard for hours on end. Very rarely do we hear of people setting out to abstain from water on purpose for medical benefits, water on hand in case things go south, and ending up dehydrated. Part of the reason is that very few people are dry fasting, so the pool of potential evidence is miniscule. I imagine this last group will have more leeway.

Still, if you’re going to try dry fasting, you have to take some basic precautions.

6 Precautions To Take When Dry Fasting

1. Get Your Doctor’s Okay

Sure, most will be skeptical at best, but I’d still advise not skipping this step—particularly if you have a health condition or take any kind of medication. Diuretics (often used for blood pressure management), for one example, add another layer to this picture.

2. No Exercise

Avoid anything more intense than walking. For one, the hypohydration will predispose you to middling results, increasing cortisol and reducing testosterone. Two, the hypohydration may progress rapidly to dehydration. If you’re going to exercise during a dry fast, “break” the fast with water first and then train.

3. Keep It Brief

Yes, there was the 5-day study, but those people were being monitored by doctors every single day. I’d say 16-24 hours is a safe upper limit and probably provides most of the benefits (as Ramadan literature shows). Any longer, buyer beware. (And, of course, make sure you get fully hydrated in between any dry fasts you might do.)

4. Fast While You Sleep

Ramadan-style probably isn’t ideal from a pure physiological standpoint. The length (16 hours) is great, but the eating schedule is not. Those who observe Ramadan fasting ritual often wake up before sunrise to fit in food. They may stay up late to eat more. They go to sleep in a well-fed state, never quite taking advantage of the 8 hours of “free” fasting time sleep usually provides (and, of course, that’s not what their fasting practice is about). For a health-motivated dry fast, on the other hand, you should take advantage of it.

5. Take Weather Into Account

Hot, humid weather will generally cause the most water loss. Cold, dry weather will cause the least. Adjust your dry fasting duration accordingly.

6. Listen To Your Body

I’ve said this a million times, but it’s especially worth saying here. If you’re not feeling well during the dry fast, listen to your instinct rather than your agenda. (And don’t begin a dry fast when you’re ill. That should go without saying.) This is an optional tool. There are hundreds of other ways to serve your health and well-being. Don’t lose the forest through the trees because you’re drawn to a practice that feels more radical. Approach it smartly, but let your body’s intuition be the final arbiter.

That’s it for me. I haven’t done any dry fasting, not on purpose at least, and I’m not particularly interested in it for myself, but I am interested in your experiences. Do any of you do dry fasting? What have you noticed? What do you recommend?

As always, if you have any questions, direct them down below. Thanks for reading!

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References:

Mascioli SR, Bantle JP, Freier EF, Hoogwerf BJ. Artifactual elevation of serum creatinine level due to fasting. Arch Intern Med. 1984;144(8):1575-6.

Fernando HA, Zibellini J, Harris RA, Seimon RV, Sainsbury A. Effect of Ramadan Fasting on Weight and Body Composition in Healthy Non-Athlete Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Nutrients. 2019;11(2)

Fahrial syam A, Suryani sobur C, Abdullah M, Makmun D. Ramadan Fasting Decreases Body Fat but Not Protein Mass. Int J Endocrinol Metab. 2016;14(1):e29687.

Aliasghari F, Izadi A, Gargari BP, Ebrahimi S. The Effects of Ramadan Fasting on Body Composition, Blood Pressure, Glucose Metabolism, and Markers of Inflammation in NAFLD Patients: An Observational Trial. J Am Coll Nutr. 2017;36(8):640-645.

Unalacak M, Kara IH, Baltaci D, Erdem O, Bucaktepe PG. Effects of Ramadan fasting on biochemical and hematological parameters and cytokines in healthy and obese individuals. Metab Syndr Relat Disord. 2011;9(2):157-61.

Saleh SA, El-kemery TA, Farrag KA, et al. Ramadan fasting: relation to atherogenic risk among obese Muslims. J Egypt Public Health Assoc. 2004;79(5-6):461-83.

Gueldich H, Zghal F, Borji R, Chtourou H, Sahli S, Rebai H. The effects of Ramadan intermittent fasting on the underlying mechanisms of force production capacity during maximal isometric voluntary contraction. Chronobiol Int. 2019;36(5):698-708.

Shephard RJ. Ramadan and sport: minimizing effects upon the observant athlete. Sports Med. 2013;43(12):1217-41.

The post Dry Fasting: Is It Worth It? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Article source here:Marks’s Daily Apple

[watsonrodriquezie]

Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist?

I’ll start with the bad news: There are no vegetarian collagen sources. Every collagen supplement you see on the shelf came from a living organism. Though somewhere down the line someone will probably grow legitimate collagen in a lab setting, it’s not available today or for the foreseeable future.

Now, some good news: Vegans and vegetarians probably need less dietary collagen than the average meat eater or Primal eater because a major reason omnivores need collagen is to balance out all the muscle meat we eat. When we metabolize methionine, an amino acid found abundantly in muscle meat, we burn through glycine, an amino acid found abundantly in collagen. If you’re not eating muscle meat, you don’t need as much glycine to balance out your diet, but it’s still a dietary necessity.

Collagen isn’t just about “balancing out meat intake.” It’s the best source of a conditionally essential amino acid known as glycine. We only make about 3 grams of glycine a day. That’s not nearly enough. The human body requires at least 10 grams per day for basic metabolic processes, so we’re looking at an average daily deficit of 7 grams that we need to make up for through diet. And in disease states that disrupt glycine synthesis, like rheumatoid arthritis, we need even more.

What About Marine Collagen?

Okay, but eating a product made from a cuddly cow or an intelligent pig is off limits for most vegetarians. What about marine collagen—collagen derived from fish bones, scales, and skin?

Back about twenty years ago, “vegetarians” often ate fish. A number of them still exist out in the wild, people who for one reason or another avoid eating land animals (including birds) but do regularly consume marine animals. If it jibes with your ethics, marine collagen is a legitimate source of collagen for vegetarians. The constituent amino acids are nearly identical to the amino acids of mammalian collagen with very similar proportions and properties.

It’s highly bioavailable, with the collagen peptides often showing up intact in the body and ready to work their magic—just like bovine or porcine collagen. In fact, if you ask many marine collagen purveyors, it’s even more bioavailable than mammalian collagen owing to its lower molecular weight.

I’m not sure that’s actually accurate, though.

According to some sources, marine collagen comes in smaller particles and is thus more bioavailable than mammalian collagen, but I haven’t seen solid evidence.

There’s this paper, which mentions increased bioavailability in a bullet point off-hand, almost as an assumption or common knowledge.

This analysis found low molecular weights in collagen derived from fish waste. Mammalian collagen generally has higher molecular weights, so that appears to be correct.

However, a very recent pro-marine collagen paper that makes a strong case for the use of marine collagen in wound repair, oral supplementation, and other medical applications does not mention increased bioavailability. It may be slightly more bioavailable—the lower the molecular weight, the more true that is—but I don’t think the effect is very meaningful. Mammalian collagen is plenty bioavailable (most efficacious studies use collagen from cows or pigs), even if it’s a few dozen kilodaltons heavier.

But even if marine collagen isn’t particularly superior to mammal collagen, it is equally beneficial.

For skin health: Fish collagen improves hydration, elasticity, and wrinkling in humans who eat it. And again.

For metabolism: Fish collagen improves glucose and lipid metabolism in type 2 diabetics. HDL and insulin sensitivity go up, triglycerides and LDL go down.

And although fish collagen hasn’t been studied in the treatment of joint pain, if it’s anything like other types of collagen, it will help there too.

What Are Strict Vegetarian Options?

What if you absolutely won’t eat collagen from marine sources? Is there anything you can do as a vegetarian to make up for it?

Make Your Own

You could cobble together your own facsimile of collagen by making an amino acid mixture. Glycine, proline, and arginine don’t cover all the amino acids present in collagen, but they’re widely available and hit the major ones.

Still, eating the amino acids that make up collagen separately doesn’t have the same effect on those collagenous tissues as eating them together in a collagenous matrix. One reason is that the collagen matrix can survive digestion more or less intact, giving it different biological properties and effects.

In one study, rats with osteoporosis ate collagen hydrolysate that scientists had marked with a radioactive signature to allow them to track its course through the body. It survived the digestive tract intact, made it into the blood, and accumulate in the kidneys. By day 14, the rats’ thigh bones had gotten stronger and denser with more organic matter and less water content.

Another study found similar results, this time for cartilage of the knee. Mice who ate radioactive collagen hydrolysate showed increased radioactivity in the knee joint.

In both cases, the collagen remained more or less intact. A blend of the isolated amino acids would not. The fact is that collagen is more than glycine. When you feed people collagen derived from pork skin, chicken feet, and cartilage, many different collagenous peptides appear in the blood. You don’t get any of those from isolated glycine.

That’s not to say it’s pointless. Pure glycine can be a helpful supplement, used in several studies to improve multiple markers of sleep quality. Just don’t expect it to have the same effect as full-blown collagen.

Get Adequate Vitamin C

Acute scurvy, caused by absolute vitamin C deficiency, triggers the dissolution of your connective tissue throughout the body. Teeth fall out, no longer held in by gums. Wounds don’t heal, your body unable to lay down new collagen.

Vegetarians usually don’t have any issues getting adequate vitamin C.

Get Adequate Copper

Copper is a necessary cofactor in the production of collagen. Studies show that you can control the production of collagen simply by providing or withholding copper.

The best vegetarian source of copper is probably dark chocolate, the darker and more bitter the better.

Get Adequate Lysine

Lysine is another amino acid that’s necessary for the production of collagen.

The best sources of lysine are in meat of all kinds, but vegetarian options include hard cheeses like parmesan and pecorino romano, as well as eggs.

True vegetarian collagen doesn’t exist. Strict vegetarians will balk. But if you can bend the rules a bit, realize that making marine collagen out of fins and scales and bones is far less wasteful than just throwing it away, and look at the benefits with an objective eye, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Even if you don’t end up using marine collagen, at least you have a few tools for getting many of the benefits with quick shortcuts and optimizing your own production of collagen.

Have you ever tried marine collagen? If you’re a vegetarian, would you consider it?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care and be well.

The post Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

[milenasanchezmk]

Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist?

I’ll start with the bad news: There are no vegetarian collagen sources. Every collagen supplement you see on the shelf came from a living organism. Though somewhere down the line someone will probably grow legitimate collagen in a lab setting, it’s not available today or for the foreseeable future.

Now, some good news: Vegans and vegetarians probably need less dietary collagen than the average meat eater or Primal eater because a major reason omnivores need collagen is to balance out all the muscle meat we eat. When we metabolize methionine, an amino acid found abundantly in muscle meat, we burn through glycine, an amino acid found abundantly in collagen. If you’re not eating muscle meat, you don’t need as much glycine to balance out your diet, but it’s still a dietary necessity.

Collagen isn’t just about “balancing out meat intake.” It’s the best source of a conditionally essential amino acid known as glycine. We only make about 3 grams of glycine a day. That’s not nearly enough. The human body requires at least 10 grams per day for basic metabolic processes, so we’re looking at an average daily deficit of 7 grams that we need to make up for through diet. And in disease states that disrupt glycine synthesis, like rheumatoid arthritis, we need even more.

What About Marine Collagen?

Okay, but eating a product made from a cuddly cow or an intelligent pig is off limits for most vegetarians. What about marine collagen—collagen derived from fish bones, scales, and skin?

Back about twenty years ago, “vegetarians” often ate fish. A number of them still exist out in the wild, people who for one reason or another avoid eating land animals (including birds) but do regularly consume marine animals. If it jibes with your ethics, marine collagen is a legitimate source of collagen for vegetarians. The constituent amino acids are nearly identical to the amino acids of mammalian collagen with very similar proportions and properties.

It’s highly bioavailable, with the collagen peptides often showing up intact in the body and ready to work their magic—just like bovine or porcine collagen. In fact, if you ask many marine collagen purveyors, it’s even more bioavailable than mammalian collagen owing to its lower molecular weight.

I’m not sure that’s actually accurate, though.

According to some sources, marine collagen comes in smaller particles and is thus more bioavailable than mammalian collagen, but I haven’t seen solid evidence.

There’s this paper, which mentions increased bioavailability in a bullet point off-hand, almost as an assumption or common knowledge.

This analysis found low molecular weights in collagen derived from fish waste. Mammalian collagen generally has higher molecular weights, so that appears to be correct.

However, a very recent pro-marine collagen paper that makes a strong case for the use of marine collagen in wound repair, oral supplementation, and other medical applications does not mention increased bioavailability. It may be slightly more bioavailable—the lower the molecular weight, the more true that is—but I don’t think the effect is very meaningful. Mammalian collagen is plenty bioavailable (most efficacious studies use collagen from cows or pigs), even if it’s a few dozen kilodaltons heavier.

But even if marine collagen isn’t particularly superior to mammal collagen, it is equally beneficial.

For skin health: Fish collagen improves hydration, elasticity, and wrinkling in humans who eat it. And again.

For metabolism: Fish collagen improves glucose and lipid metabolism in type 2 diabetics. HDL and insulin sensitivity go up, triglycerides and LDL go down.

And although fish collagen hasn’t been studied in the treatment of joint pain, if it’s anything like other types of collagen, it will help there too.

What Are Strict Vegetarian Options?

What if you absolutely won’t eat collagen from marine sources? Is there anything you can do as a vegetarian to make up for it?

Make Your Own

You could cobble together your own facsimile of collagen by making an amino acid mixture. Glycine, proline, and arginine don’t cover all the amino acids present in collagen, but they’re widely available and hit the major ones.

Still, eating the amino acids that make up collagen separately doesn’t have the same effect on those collagenous tissues as eating them together in a collagenous matrix. One reason is that the collagen matrix can survive digestion more or less intact, giving it different biological properties and effects.

In one study, rats with osteoporosis ate collagen hydrolysate that scientists had marked with a radioactive signature to allow them to track its course through the body. It survived the digestive tract intact, made it into the blood, and accumulate in the kidneys. By day 14, the rats’ thigh bones had gotten stronger and denser with more organic matter and less water content.

Another study found similar results, this time for cartilage of the knee. Mice who ate radioactive collagen hydrolysate showed increased radioactivity in the knee joint.

In both cases, the collagen remained more or less intact. A blend of the isolated amino acids would not. The fact is that collagen is more than glycine. When you feed people collagen derived from pork skin, chicken feet, and cartilage, many different collagenous peptides appear in the blood. You don’t get any of those from isolated glycine.

That’s not to say it’s pointless. Pure glycine can be a helpful supplement, used in several studies to improve multiple markers of sleep quality. Just don’t expect it to have the same effect as full-blown collagen.

Get Adequate Vitamin C

Acute scurvy, caused by absolute vitamin C deficiency, triggers the dissolution of your connective tissue throughout the body. Teeth fall out, no longer held in by gums. Wounds don’t heal, your body unable to lay down new collagen.

Vegetarians usually don’t have any issues getting adequate vitamin C.

Get Adequate Copper

Copper is a necessary cofactor in the production of collagen. Studies show that you can control the production of collagen simply by providing or withholding copper.

The best vegetarian source of copper is probably dark chocolate, the darker and more bitter the better.

Get Adequate Lysine

Lysine is another amino acid that’s necessary for the production of collagen.

The best sources of lysine are in meat of all kinds, but vegetarian options include hard cheeses like parmesan and pecorino romano, as well as eggs.

True vegetarian collagen doesn’t exist. Strict vegetarians will balk. But if you can bend the rules a bit, realize that making marine collagen out of fins and scales and bones is far less wasteful than just throwing it away, and look at the benefits with an objective eye, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Even if you don’t end up using marine collagen, at least you have a few tools for getting many of the benefits with quick shortcuts and optimizing your own production of collagen.

Have you ever tried marine collagen? If you’re a vegetarian, would you consider it?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care and be well.

The post Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

[cristinajourdanqp]

Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist?

I’ll start with the bad news: There are no vegetarian collagen sources. Every collagen supplement you see on the shelf came from a living organism. Though somewhere down the line someone will probably grow legitimate collagen in a lab setting, it’s not available today or for the foreseeable future.

Now, some good news: Vegans and vegetarians probably need less dietary collagen than the average meat eater or Primal eater because a major reason omnivores need collagen is to balance out all the muscle meat we eat. When we metabolize methionine, an amino acid found abundantly in muscle meat, we burn through glycine, an amino acid found abundantly in collagen. If you’re not eating muscle meat, you don’t need as much glycine to balance out your diet, but it’s still a dietary necessity.

Collagen isn’t just about “balancing out meat intake.” It’s the best source of a conditionally essential amino acid known as glycine. We only make about 3 grams of glycine a day. That’s not nearly enough. The human body requires at least 10 grams per day for basic metabolic processes, so we’re looking at an average daily deficit of 7 grams that we need to make up for through diet. And in disease states that disrupt glycine synthesis, like rheumatoid arthritis, we need even more.

What About Marine Collagen?

Okay, but eating a product made from a cuddly cow or an intelligent pig is off limits for most vegetarians. What about marine collagen—collagen derived from fish bones, scales, and skin?

Back about twenty years ago, “vegetarians” often ate fish. A number of them still exist out in the wild, people who for one reason or another avoid eating land animals (including birds) but do regularly consume marine animals. If it jibes with your ethics, marine collagen is a legitimate source of collagen for vegetarians. The constituent amino acids are nearly identical to the amino acids of mammalian collagen with very similar proportions and properties.

It’s highly bioavailable, with the collagen peptides often showing up intact in the body and ready to work their magic—just like bovine or porcine collagen. In fact, if you ask many marine collagen purveyors, it’s even more bioavailable than mammalian collagen owing to its lower molecular weight.

I’m not sure that’s actually accurate, though.

According to some sources, marine collagen comes in smaller particles and is thus more bioavailable than mammalian collagen, but I haven’t seen solid evidence.

There’s this paper, which mentions increased bioavailability in a bullet point off-hand, almost as an assumption or common knowledge.

This analysis found low molecular weights in collagen derived from fish waste. Mammalian collagen generally has higher molecular weights, so that appears to be correct.

However, a very recent pro-marine collagen paper that makes a strong case for the use of marine collagen in wound repair, oral supplementation, and other medical applications does not mention increased bioavailability. It may be slightly more bioavailable—the lower the molecular weight, the more true that is—but I don’t think the effect is very meaningful. Mammalian collagen is plenty bioavailable (most efficacious studies use collagen from cows or pigs), even if it’s a few dozen kilodaltons heavier.

But even if marine collagen isn’t particularly superior to mammal collagen, it is equally beneficial.

For skin health: Fish collagen improves hydration, elasticity, and wrinkling in humans who eat it. And again.

For metabolism: Fish collagen improves glucose and lipid metabolism in type 2 diabetics. HDL and insulin sensitivity go up, triglycerides and LDL go down.

And although fish collagen hasn’t been studied in the treatment of joint pain, if it’s anything like other types of collagen, it will help there too.

What Are Strict Vegetarian Options?

What if you absolutely won’t eat collagen from marine sources? Is there anything you can do as a vegetarian to make up for it?

Make Your Own

You could cobble together your own facsimile of collagen by making an amino acid mixture. Glycine, proline, and arginine don’t cover all the amino acids present in collagen, but they’re widely available and hit the major ones.

Still, eating the amino acids that make up collagen separately doesn’t have the same effect on those collagenous tissues as eating them together in a collagenous matrix. One reason is that the collagen matrix can survive digestion more or less intact, giving it different biological properties and effects.

In one study, rats with osteoporosis ate collagen hydrolysate that scientists had marked with a radioactive signature to allow them to track its course through the body. It survived the digestive tract intact, made it into the blood, and accumulate in the kidneys. By day 14, the rats’ thigh bones had gotten stronger and denser with more organic matter and less water content.

Another study found similar results, this time for cartilage of the knee. Mice who ate radioactive collagen hydrolysate showed increased radioactivity in the knee joint.

In both cases, the collagen remained more or less intact. A blend of the isolated amino acids would not. The fact is that collagen is more than glycine. When you feed people collagen derived from pork skin, chicken feet, and cartilage, many different collagenous peptides appear in the blood. You don’t get any of those from isolated glycine.

That’s not to say it’s pointless. Pure glycine can be a helpful supplement, used in several studies to improve multiple markers of sleep quality. Just don’t expect it to have the same effect as full-blown collagen.

Get Adequate Vitamin C

Acute scurvy, caused by absolute vitamin C deficiency, triggers the dissolution of your connective tissue throughout the body. Teeth fall out, no longer held in by gums. Wounds don’t heal, your body unable to lay down new collagen.

Vegetarians usually don’t have any issues getting adequate vitamin C.

Get Adequate Copper

Copper is a necessary cofactor in the production of collagen. Studies show that you can control the production of collagen simply by providing or withholding copper.

The best vegetarian source of copper is probably dark chocolate, the darker and more bitter the better.

Get Adequate Lysine

Lysine is another amino acid that’s necessary for the production of collagen.

The best sources of lysine are in meat of all kinds, but vegetarian options include hard cheeses like parmesan and pecorino romano, as well as eggs.

True vegetarian collagen doesn’t exist. Strict vegetarians will balk. But if you can bend the rules a bit, realize that making marine collagen out of fins and scales and bones is far less wasteful than just throwing it away, and look at the benefits with an objective eye, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Even if you don’t end up using marine collagen, at least you have a few tools for getting many of the benefits with quick shortcuts and optimizing your own production of collagen.

Have you ever tried marine collagen? If you’re a vegetarian, would you consider it?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care and be well.

The post Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

[fishermariawo]

Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist?

I’ll start with the bad news: There are no vegetarian collagen sources. Every collagen supplement you see on the shelf came from a living organism. Though somewhere down the line someone will probably grow legitimate collagen in a lab setting, it’s not available today or for the foreseeable future.

Now, some good news: Vegans and vegetarians probably need less dietary collagen than the average meat eater or Primal eater because a major reason omnivores need collagen is to balance out all the muscle meat we eat. When we metabolize methionine, an amino acid found abundantly in muscle meat, we burn through glycine, an amino acid found abundantly in collagen. If you’re not eating muscle meat, you don’t need as much glycine to balance out your diet, but it’s still a dietary necessity.

Collagen isn’t just about “balancing out meat intake.” It’s the best source of a conditionally essential amino acid known as glycine. We only make about 3 grams of glycine a day. That’s not nearly enough. The human body requires at least 10 grams per day for basic metabolic processes, so we’re looking at an average daily deficit of 7 grams that we need to make up for through diet. And in disease states that disrupt glycine synthesis, like rheumatoid arthritis, we need even more.

What About Marine Collagen?

Okay, but eating a product made from a cuddly cow or an intelligent pig is off limits for most vegetarians. What about marine collagen—collagen derived from fish bones, scales, and skin?

Back about twenty years ago, “vegetarians” often ate fish. A number of them still exist out in the wild, people who for one reason or another avoid eating land animals (including birds) but do regularly consume marine animals. If it jibes with your ethics, marine collagen is a legitimate source of collagen for vegetarians. The constituent amino acids are nearly identical to the amino acids of mammalian collagen with very similar proportions and properties.

It’s highly bioavailable, with the collagen peptides often showing up intact in the body and ready to work their magic—just like bovine or porcine collagen. In fact, if you ask many marine collagen purveyors, it’s even more bioavailable than mammalian collagen owing to its lower molecular weight.

I’m not sure that’s actually accurate, though.

According to some sources, marine collagen comes in smaller particles and is thus more bioavailable than mammalian collagen, but I haven’t seen solid evidence.

There’s this paper, which mentions increased bioavailability in a bullet point off-hand, almost as an assumption or common knowledge.

This analysis found low molecular weights in collagen derived from fish waste. Mammalian collagen generally has higher molecular weights, so that appears to be correct.

However, a very recent pro-marine collagen paper that makes a strong case for the use of marine collagen in wound repair, oral supplementation, and other medical applications does not mention increased bioavailability. It may be slightly more bioavailable—the lower the molecular weight, the more true that is—but I don’t think the effect is very meaningful. Mammalian collagen is plenty bioavailable (most efficacious studies use collagen from cows or pigs), even if it’s a few dozen kilodaltons heavier.

But even if marine collagen isn’t particularly superior to mammal collagen, it is equally beneficial.

For skin health: Fish collagen improves hydration, elasticity, and wrinkling in humans who eat it. And again.

For metabolism: Fish collagen improves glucose and lipid metabolism in type 2 diabetics. HDL and insulin sensitivity go up, triglycerides and LDL go down.

And although fish collagen hasn’t been studied in the treatment of joint pain, if it’s anything like other types of collagen, it will help there too.

What Are Strict Vegetarian Options?

What if you absolutely won’t eat collagen from marine sources? Is there anything you can do as a vegetarian to make up for it?

Make Your Own

You could cobble together your own facsimile of collagen by making an amino acid mixture. Glycine, proline, and arginine don’t cover all the amino acids present in collagen, but they’re widely available and hit the major ones.

Still, eating the amino acids that make up collagen separately doesn’t have the same effect on those collagenous tissues as eating them together in a collagenous matrix. One reason is that the collagen matrix can survive digestion more or less intact, giving it different biological properties and effects.

In one study, rats with osteoporosis ate collagen hydrolysate that scientists had marked with a radioactive signature to allow them to track its course through the body. It survived the digestive tract intact, made it into the blood, and accumulate in the kidneys. By day 14, the rats’ thigh bones had gotten stronger and denser with more organic matter and less water content.

Another study found similar results, this time for cartilage of the knee. Mice who ate radioactive collagen hydrolysate showed increased radioactivity in the knee joint.

In both cases, the collagen remained more or less intact. A blend of the isolated amino acids would not. The fact is that collagen is more than glycine. When you feed people collagen derived from pork skin, chicken feet, and cartilage, many different collagenous peptides appear in the blood. You don’t get any of those from isolated glycine.

That’s not to say it’s pointless. Pure glycine can be a helpful supplement, used in several studies to improve multiple markers of sleep quality. Just don’t expect it to have the same effect as full-blown collagen.

Get Adequate Vitamin C

Acute scurvy, caused by absolute vitamin C deficiency, triggers the dissolution of your connective tissue throughout the body. Teeth fall out, no longer held in by gums. Wounds don’t heal, your body unable to lay down new collagen.

Vegetarians usually don’t have any issues getting adequate vitamin C.

Get Adequate Copper

Copper is a necessary cofactor in the production of collagen. Studies show that you can control the production of collagen simply by providing or withholding copper.

The best vegetarian source of copper is probably dark chocolate, the darker and more bitter the better.

Get Adequate Lysine

Lysine is another amino acid that’s necessary for the production of collagen.

The best sources of lysine are in meat of all kinds, but vegetarian options include hard cheeses like parmesan and pecorino romano, as well as eggs.

True vegetarian collagen doesn’t exist. Strict vegetarians will balk. But if you can bend the rules a bit, realize that making marine collagen out of fins and scales and bones is far less wasteful than just throwing it away, and look at the benefits with an objective eye, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Even if you don’t end up using marine collagen, at least you have a few tools for getting many of the benefits with quick shortcuts and optimizing your own production of collagen.

Have you ever tried marine collagen? If you’re a vegetarian, would you consider it?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care and be well.

The post Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

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Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist? http://bit.ly/2Ghnhuj

I’ll start with the bad news: There are no vegetarian collagen sources. Every collagen supplement you see on the shelf came from a living organism. Though somewhere down the line someone will probably grow legitimate collagen in a lab setting, it’s not available today or for the foreseeable future.

Now, some good news: Vegans and vegetarians probably need less dietary collagen than the average meat eater or Primal eater because a major reason omnivores need collagen is to balance out all the muscle meat we eat. When we metabolize methionine, an amino acid found abundantly in muscle meat, we burn through glycine, an amino acid found abundantly in collagen. If you’re not eating muscle meat, you don’t need as much glycine to balance out your diet, but it’s still a dietary necessity.

Collagen isn’t just about “balancing out meat intake.” It’s the best source of a conditionally essential amino acid known as glycine. We only make about 3 grams of glycine a day. That’s not nearly enough. The human body requires at least 10 grams per day for basic metabolic processes, so we’re looking at an average daily deficit of 7 grams that we need to make up for through diet. And in disease states that disrupt glycine synthesis, like rheumatoid arthritis, we need even more.

What About Marine Collagen?

Okay, but eating a product made from a cuddly cow or an intelligent pig is off limits for most vegetarians. What about marine collagen—collagen derived from fish bones, scales, and skin?

Back about twenty years ago, “vegetarians” often ate fish. A number of them still exist out in the wild, people who for one reason or another avoid eating land animals (including birds) but do regularly consume marine animals. If it jibes with your ethics, marine collagen is a legitimate source of collagen for vegetarians. The constituent amino acids are nearly identical to the amino acids of mammalian collagen with very similar proportions and properties.

It’s highly bioavailable, with the collagen peptides often showing up intact in the body and ready to work their magic—just like bovine or porcine collagen. In fact, if you ask many marine collagen purveyors, it’s even more bioavailable than mammalian collagen owing to its lower molecular weight.

I’m not sure that’s actually accurate, though.

According to some sources, marine collagen comes in smaller particles and is thus more bioavailable than mammalian collagen, but I haven’t seen solid evidence.

There’s this paper, which mentions increased bioavailability in a bullet point off-hand, almost as an assumption or common knowledge.

This analysis found low molecular weights in collagen derived from fish waste. Mammalian collagen generally has higher molecular weights, so that appears to be correct.

However, a very recent pro-marine collagen paper that makes a strong case for the use of marine collagen in wound repair, oral supplementation, and other medical applications does not mention increased bioavailability. It may be slightly more bioavailable—the lower the molecular weight, the more true that is—but I don’t think the effect is very meaningful. Mammalian collagen is plenty bioavailable (most efficacious studies use collagen from cows or pigs), even if it’s a few dozen kilodaltons heavier.

But even if marine collagen isn’t particularly superior to mammal collagen, it is equally beneficial.

For skin health: Fish collagen improves hydration, elasticity, and wrinkling in humans who eat it. And again.

For metabolism: Fish collagen improves glucose and lipid metabolism in type 2 diabetics. HDL and insulin sensitivity go up, triglycerides and LDL go down.

And although fish collagen hasn’t been studied in the treatment of joint pain, if it’s anything like other types of collagen, it will help there too.

What Are Strict Vegetarian Options?

What if you absolutely won’t eat collagen from marine sources? Is there anything you can do as a vegetarian to make up for it?

Make Your Own

You could cobble together your own facsimile of collagen by making an amino acid mixture. Glycine, proline, and arginine don’t cover all the amino acids present in collagen, but they’re widely available and hit the major ones.

Still, eating the amino acids that make up collagen separately doesn’t have the same effect on those collagenous tissues as eating them together in a collagenous matrix. One reason is that the collagen matrix can survive digestion more or less intact, giving it different biological properties and effects.

In one study, rats with osteoporosis ate collagen hydrolysate that scientists had marked with a radioactive signature to allow them to track its course through the body. It survived the digestive tract intact, made it into the blood, and accumulate in the kidneys. By day 14, the rats’ thigh bones had gotten stronger and denser with more organic matter and less water content.

Another study found similar results, this time for cartilage of the knee. Mice who ate radioactive collagen hydrolysate showed increased radioactivity in the knee joint.

In both cases, the collagen remained more or less intact. A blend of the isolated amino acids would not. The fact is that collagen is more than glycine. When you feed people collagen derived from pork skin, chicken feet, and cartilage, many different collagenous peptides appear in the blood. You don’t get any of those from isolated glycine.

That’s not to say it’s pointless. Pure glycine can be a helpful supplement, used in several studies to improve multiple markers of sleep quality. Just don’t expect it to have the same effect as full-blown collagen.

Get Adequate Vitamin C

Acute scurvy, caused by absolute vitamin C deficiency, triggers the dissolution of your connective tissue throughout the body. Teeth fall out, no longer held in by gums. Wounds don’t heal, your body unable to lay down new collagen.

Vegetarians usually don’t have any issues getting adequate vitamin C.

Get Adequate Copper

Copper is a necessary cofactor in the production of collagen. Studies show that you can control the production of collagen simply by providing or withholding copper.

The best vegetarian source of copper is probably dark chocolate, the darker and more bitter the better.

Get Adequate Lysine

Lysine is another amino acid that’s necessary for the production of collagen.

The best sources of lysine are in meat of all kinds, but vegetarian options include hard cheeses like parmesan and pecorino romano, as well as eggs.

True vegetarian collagen doesn’t exist. Strict vegetarians will balk. But if you can bend the rules a bit, realize that making marine collagen out of fins and scales and bones is far less wasteful than just throwing it away, and look at the benefits with an objective eye, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Even if you don’t end up using marine collagen, at least you have a few tools for getting many of the benefits with quick shortcuts and optimizing your own production of collagen.

Have you ever tried marine collagen? If you’re a vegetarian, would you consider it?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care and be well.

//

//

The post Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

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[jesseneufeld]

Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist?

I’ll start with the bad news: There are no vegetarian collagen sources. Every collagen supplement you see on the shelf came from a living organism. Though somewhere down the line someone will probably grow legitimate collagen in a lab setting, it’s not available today or for the foreseeable future.

Now, some good news: Vegans and vegetarians probably need less dietary collagen than the average meat eater or Primal eater because a major reason omnivores need collagen is to balance out all the muscle meat we eat. When we metabolize methionine, an amino acid found abundantly in muscle meat, we burn through glycine, an amino acid found abundantly in collagen. If you’re not eating muscle meat, you don’t need as much glycine to balance out your diet, but it’s still a dietary necessity.

Collagen isn’t just about “balancing out meat intake.” It’s the best source of a conditionally essential amino acid known as glycine. We only make about 3 grams of glycine a day. That’s not nearly enough. The human body requires at least 10 grams per day for basic metabolic processes, so we’re looking at an average daily deficit of 7 grams that we need to make up for through diet. And in disease states that disrupt glycine synthesis, like rheumatoid arthritis, we need even more.

What About Marine Collagen?

Okay, but eating a product made from a cuddly cow or an intelligent pig is off limits for most vegetarians. What about marine collagen—collagen derived from fish bones, scales, and skin?

Back about twenty years ago, “vegetarians” often ate fish. A number of them still exist out in the wild, people who for one reason or another avoid eating land animals (including birds) but do regularly consume marine animals. If it jibes with your ethics, marine collagen is a legitimate source of collagen for vegetarians. The constituent amino acids are nearly identical to the amino acids of mammalian collagen with very similar proportions and properties.

It’s highly bioavailable, with the collagen peptides often showing up intact in the body and ready to work their magic—just like bovine or porcine collagen. In fact, if you ask many marine collagen purveyors, it’s even more bioavailable than mammalian collagen owing to its lower molecular weight.

I’m not sure that’s actually accurate, though.

According to some sources, marine collagen comes in smaller particles and is thus more bioavailable than mammalian collagen, but I haven’t seen solid evidence.

There’s this paper, which mentions increased bioavailability in a bullet point off-hand, almost as an assumption or common knowledge.

This analysis found low molecular weights in collagen derived from fish waste. Mammalian collagen generally has higher molecular weights, so that appears to be correct.

However, a very recent pro-marine collagen paper that makes a strong case for the use of marine collagen in wound repair, oral supplementation, and other medical applications does not mention increased bioavailability. It may be slightly more bioavailable—the lower the molecular weight, the more true that is—but I don’t think the effect is very meaningful. Mammalian collagen is plenty bioavailable (most efficacious studies use collagen from cows or pigs), even if it’s a few dozen kilodaltons heavier.

But even if marine collagen isn’t particularly superior to mammal collagen, it is equally beneficial.

For skin health: Fish collagen improves hydration, elasticity, and wrinkling in humans who eat it. And again.

For metabolism: Fish collagen improves glucose and lipid metabolism in type 2 diabetics. HDL and insulin sensitivity go up, triglycerides and LDL go down.

And although fish collagen hasn’t been studied in the treatment of joint pain, if it’s anything like other types of collagen, it will help there too.

What Are Strict Vegetarian Options?

What if you absolutely won’t eat collagen from marine sources? Is there anything you can do as a vegetarian to make up for it?

Make Your Own

You could cobble together your own facsimile of collagen by making an amino acid mixture. Glycine, proline, and arginine don’t cover all the amino acids present in collagen, but they’re widely available and hit the major ones.

Still, eating the amino acids that make up collagen separately doesn’t have the same effect on those collagenous tissues as eating them together in a collagenous matrix. One reason is that the collagen matrix can survive digestion more or less intact, giving it different biological properties and effects.

In one study, rats with osteoporosis ate collagen hydrolysate that scientists had marked with a radioactive signature to allow them to track its course through the body. It survived the digestive tract intact, made it into the blood, and accumulate in the kidneys. By day 14, the rats’ thigh bones had gotten stronger and denser with more organic matter and less water content.

Another study found similar results, this time for cartilage of the knee. Mice who ate radioactive collagen hydrolysate showed increased radioactivity in the knee joint.

In both cases, the collagen remained more or less intact. A blend of the isolated amino acids would not. The fact is that collagen is more than glycine. When you feed people collagen derived from pork skin, chicken feet, and cartilage, many different collagenous peptides appear in the blood. You don’t get any of those from isolated glycine.

That’s not to say it’s pointless. Pure glycine can be a helpful supplement, used in several studies to improve multiple markers of sleep quality. Just don’t expect it to have the same effect as full-blown collagen.

Get Adequate Vitamin C

Acute scurvy, caused by absolute vitamin C deficiency, triggers the dissolution of your connective tissue throughout the body. Teeth fall out, no longer held in by gums. Wounds don’t heal, your body unable to lay down new collagen.

Vegetarians usually don’t have any issues getting adequate vitamin C.

Get Adequate Copper

Copper is a necessary cofactor in the production of collagen. Studies show that you can control the production of collagen simply by providing or withholding copper.

The best vegetarian source of copper is probably dark chocolate, the darker and more bitter the better.

Get Adequate Lysine

Lysine is another amino acid that’s necessary for the production of collagen.

The best sources of lysine are in meat of all kinds, but vegetarian options include hard cheeses like parmesan and pecorino romano, as well as eggs.

True vegetarian collagen doesn’t exist. Strict vegetarians will balk. But if you can bend the rules a bit, realize that making marine collagen out of fins and scales and bones is far less wasteful than just throwing it away, and look at the benefits with an objective eye, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Even if you don’t end up using marine collagen, at least you have a few tools for getting many of the benefits with quick shortcuts and optimizing your own production of collagen.

Have you ever tried marine collagen? If you’re a vegetarian, would you consider it?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care and be well.

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Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist? published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/

[jesseneufeld]

Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist?

I’ll start with the bad news: There are no vegetarian collagen sources. Every collagen supplement you see on the shelf came from a living organism. Though somewhere down the line someone will probably grow legitimate collagen in a lab setting, it’s not available today or for the foreseeable future.

Now, some good news: Vegans and vegetarians probably need less dietary collagen than the average meat eater or Primal eater because a major reason omnivores need collagen is to balance out all the muscle meat we eat. When we metabolize methionine, an amino acid found abundantly in muscle meat, we burn through glycine, an amino acid found abundantly in collagen. If you’re not eating muscle meat, you don’t need as much glycine to balance out your diet, but it’s still a dietary necessity.

Collagen isn’t just about “balancing out meat intake.” It’s the best source of a conditionally essential amino acid known as glycine. We only make about 3 grams of glycine a day. That’s not nearly enough. The human body requires at least 10 grams per day for basic metabolic processes, so we’re looking at an average daily deficit of 7 grams that we need to make up for through diet. And in disease states that disrupt glycine synthesis, like rheumatoid arthritis, we need even more.

What About Marine Collagen?

Okay, but eating a product made from a cuddly cow or an intelligent pig is off limits for most vegetarians. What about marine collagen—collagen derived from fish bones, scales, and skin?

Back about twenty years ago, “vegetarians” often ate fish. A number of them still exist out in the wild, people who for one reason or another avoid eating land animals (including birds) but do regularly consume marine animals. If it jibes with your ethics, marine collagen is a legitimate source of collagen for vegetarians. The constituent amino acids are nearly identical to the amino acids of mammalian collagen with very similar proportions and properties.

It’s highly bioavailable, with the collagen peptides often showing up intact in the body and ready to work their magic—just like bovine or porcine collagen. In fact, if you ask many marine collagen purveyors, it’s even more bioavailable than mammalian collagen owing to its lower molecular weight.

I’m not sure that’s actually accurate, though.

According to some sources, marine collagen comes in smaller particles and is thus more bioavailable than mammalian collagen, but I haven’t seen solid evidence.

There’s this paper, which mentions increased bioavailability in a bullet point off-hand, almost as an assumption or common knowledge.

This analysis found low molecular weights in collagen derived from fish waste. Mammalian collagen generally has higher molecular weights, so that appears to be correct.

However, a very recent pro-marine collagen paper that makes a strong case for the use of marine collagen in wound repair, oral supplementation, and other medical applications does not mention increased bioavailability. It may be slightly more bioavailable—the lower the molecular weight, the more true that is—but I don’t think the effect is very meaningful. Mammalian collagen is plenty bioavailable (most efficacious studies use collagen from cows or pigs), even if it’s a few dozen kilodaltons heavier.

But even if marine collagen isn’t particularly superior to mammal collagen, it is equally beneficial.

For skin health: Fish collagen improves hydration, elasticity, and wrinkling in humans who eat it. And again.

For metabolism: Fish collagen improves glucose and lipid metabolism in type 2 diabetics. HDL and insulin sensitivity go up, triglycerides and LDL go down.

And although fish collagen hasn’t been studied in the treatment of joint pain, if it’s anything like other types of collagen, it will help there too.

What Are Strict Vegetarian Options?

What if you absolutely won’t eat collagen from marine sources? Is there anything you can do as a vegetarian to make up for it?

Make Your Own

You could cobble together your own facsimile of collagen by making an amino acid mixture. Glycine, proline, and arginine don’t cover all the amino acids present in collagen, but they’re widely available and hit the major ones.

Still, eating the amino acids that make up collagen separately doesn’t have the same effect on those collagenous tissues as eating them together in a collagenous matrix. One reason is that the collagen matrix can survive digestion more or less intact, giving it different biological properties and effects.

In one study, rats with osteoporosis ate collagen hydrolysate that scientists had marked with a radioactive signature to allow them to track its course through the body. It survived the digestive tract intact, made it into the blood, and accumulate in the kidneys. By day 14, the rats’ thigh bones had gotten stronger and denser with more organic matter and less water content.

Another study found similar results, this time for cartilage of the knee. Mice who ate radioactive collagen hydrolysate showed increased radioactivity in the knee joint.

In both cases, the collagen remained more or less intact. A blend of the isolated amino acids would not. The fact is that collagen is more than glycine. When you feed people collagen derived from pork skin, chicken feet, and cartilage, many different collagenous peptides appear in the blood. You don’t get any of those from isolated glycine.

That’s not to say it’s pointless. Pure glycine can be a helpful supplement, used in several studies to improve multiple markers of sleep quality. Just don’t expect it to have the same effect as full-blown collagen.

Get Adequate Vitamin C

Acute scurvy, caused by absolute vitamin C deficiency, triggers the dissolution of your connective tissue throughout the body. Teeth fall out, no longer held in by gums. Wounds don’t heal, your body unable to lay down new collagen.

Vegetarians usually don’t have any issues getting adequate vitamin C.

Get Adequate Copper

Copper is a necessary cofactor in the production of collagen. Studies show that you can control the production of collagen simply by providing or withholding copper.

The best vegetarian source of copper is probably dark chocolate, the darker and more bitter the better.

Get Adequate Lysine

Lysine is another amino acid that’s necessary for the production of collagen.

The best sources of lysine are in meat of all kinds, but vegetarian options include hard cheeses like parmesan and pecorino romano, as well as eggs.

True vegetarian collagen doesn’t exist. Strict vegetarians will balk. But if you can bend the rules a bit, realize that making marine collagen out of fins and scales and bones is far less wasteful than just throwing it away, and look at the benefits with an objective eye, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Even if you don’t end up using marine collagen, at least you have a few tools for getting many of the benefits with quick shortcuts and optimizing your own production of collagen.

Have you ever tried marine collagen? If you’re a vegetarian, would you consider it?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care and be well.

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The post Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist? appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist? published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/

[cynthiamwashington]

Does Vegetarian Collagen Exist?

I’ll start with the bad news: There are no vegetarian collagen sources. Every collagen supplement you see on the shelf came from a living organism. Though somewhere down the line someone will probably grow legitimate collagen in a lab setting, it’s not available today or for the foreseeable future.

Now, some good news: Vegans and vegetarians probably need less dietary collagen than the average meat eater or Primal eater because a major reason omnivores need collagen is to balance out all the muscle meat we eat. When we metabolize methionine, an amino acid found abundantly in muscle meat, we burn through glycine, an amino acid found abundantly in collagen. If you’re not eating muscle meat, you don’t need as much glycine to balance out your diet, but it’s still a dietary necessity.

Collagen isn’t just about “balancing out meat intake.” It’s the best source of a conditionally essential amino acid known as glycine. We only make about 3 grams of glycine a day. That’s not nearly enough. The human body requires at least 10 grams per day for basic metabolic processes, so we’re looking at an average daily deficit of 7 grams that we need to make up for through diet. And in disease states that disrupt glycine synthesis, like rheumatoid arthritis, we need even more.

What About Marine Collagen?

Okay, but eating a product made from a cuddly cow or an intelligent pig is off limits for most vegetarians. What about marine collagen—collagen derived from fish bones, scales, and skin?

Back about twenty years ago, “vegetarians” often ate fish. A number of them still exist out in the wild, people who for one reason or another avoid eating land animals (including birds) but do regularly consume marine animals. If it jibes with your ethics, marine collagen is a legitimate source of collagen for vegetarians. The constituent amino acids are nearly identical to the amino acids of mammalian collagen with very similar proportions and properties.

It’s highly bioavailable, with the collagen peptides often showing up intact in the body and ready to work their magic—just like bovine or porcine collagen. In fact, if you ask many marine collagen purveyors, it’s even more bioavailable than mammalian collagen owing to its lower molecular weight.

I’m not sure that’s actually accurate, though.

According to some sources, marine collagen comes in smaller particles and is thus more bioavailable than mammalian collagen, but I haven’t seen solid evidence.

There’s this paper, which mentions increased bioavailability in a bullet point off-hand, almost as an assumption or common knowledge.

This analysis found low molecular weights in collagen derived from fish waste. Mammalian collagen generally has higher molecular weights, so that appears to be correct.

However, a very recent pro-marine collagen paper that makes a strong case for the use of marine collagen in wound repair, oral supplementation, and other medical applications does not mention increased bioavailability. It may be slightly more bioavailable—the lower the molecular weight, the more true that is—but I don’t think the effect is very meaningful. Mammalian collagen is plenty bioavailable (most efficacious studies use collagen from cows or pigs), even if it’s a few dozen kilodaltons heavier.

But even if marine collagen isn’t particularly superior to mammal collagen, it is equally beneficial.

For skin health: Fish collagen improves hydration, elasticity, and wrinkling in humans who eat it. And again.

For metabolism: Fish collagen improves glucose and lipid metabolism in type 2 diabetics. HDL and insulin sensitivity go up, triglycerides and LDL go down.

And although fish collagen hasn’t been studied in the treatment of joint pain, if it’s anything like other types of collagen, it will help there too.

What Are Strict Vegetarian Options?

What if you absolutely won’t eat collagen from marine sources? Is there anything you can do as a vegetarian to make up for it?

Make Your Own

You could cobble together your own facsimile of collagen by making an amino acid mixture. Glycine, proline, and arginine don’t cover all the amino acids present in collagen, but they’re widely available and hit the major ones.

Still, eating the amino acids that make up collagen separately doesn’t have the same effect on those collagenous tissues as eating them together in a collagenous matrix. One reason is that the collagen matrix can survive digestion more or less intact, giving it different biological properties and effects.

In one study, rats with osteoporosis ate collagen hydrolysate that scientists had marked with a radioactive signature to allow them to track its course through the body. It survived the digestive tract intact, made it into the blood, and accumulate in the kidneys. By day 14, the rats’ thigh bones had gotten stronger and denser with more organic matter and less water content.

Another study found similar results, this time for cartilage of the knee. Mice who ate radioactive collagen hydrolysate showed increased radioactivity in the knee joint.

In both cases, the collagen remained more or less intact. A blend of the isolated amino acids would not. The fact is that collagen is more than glycine. When you feed people collagen derived from pork skin, chicken feet, and cartilage, many different collagenous peptides appear in the blood. You don’t get any of those from isolated glycine.

That’s not to say it’s pointless. Pure glycine can be a helpful supplement, used in several studies to improve multiple markers of sleep quality. Just don’t expect it to have the same effect as full-blown collagen.

Get Adequate Vitamin C

Acute scurvy, caused by absolute vitamin C deficiency, triggers the dissolution of your connective tissue throughout the body. Teeth fall out, no longer held in by gums. Wounds don’t heal, your body unable to lay down new collagen.

Vegetarians usually don’t have any issues getting adequate vitamin C.

Get Adequate Copper

Copper is a necessary cofactor in the production of collagen. Studies show that you can control the production of collagen simply by providing or withholding copper.

The best vegetarian source of copper is probably dark chocolate, the darker and more bitter the better.

Get Adequate Lysine

Lysine is another amino acid that’s necessary for the production of collagen.

The best sources of lysine are in meat of all kinds, but vegetarian options include hard cheeses like parmesan and pecorino romano, as well as eggs.

True vegetarian collagen doesn’t exist. Strict vegetarians will balk. But if you can bend the rules a bit, realize that making marine collagen out of fins and scales and bones is far less wasteful than just throwing it away, and look at the benefits with an objective eye, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. Even if you don’t end up using marine collagen, at least you have a few tools for getting many of the benefits with quick shortcuts and optimizing your own production of collagen.

Have you ever tried marine collagen? If you’re a vegetarian, would you consider it?

Thanks for reading, everyone. Take care and be well.

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