I thought this diet was perfect!

I recently gave a list of the foods of which my diet consists, and it included collagen powder. Carnivore purists would scoff at a number of things on my list, including that one, even if it is an animal-based food. Why? Because you can get collagen from meat! Why are you wasting your money?  Just include the gristle and chewy parts and have lots of bone broth instead of an expensive powder, they’d say. And they’d be right. You can certainly get plenty of collagen that way.

But you also might not get enough collagen that way. Or you might not be able to eat that way consistently. Or you might just want to be very sure of the minimum amount of collagen you’re getting, and that amount will always vary in foods.

I don’t like to drink a lot of bone broth. I don’t need a lot of extra liquid in my day, and I really just don’t enjoy a cup of bone broth unless I’m cold or have a sore throat. More importantly, because of my histamine sensitivities, long-cooked foods tend to make me itch in unmentionable places, so I don’t want to drink bone broth every day. And the chewy, slimy, gristly bits are–I’m sorry, I can’t grow up about this–gross. So is chicken skin, unless it’s very, very crispy. I’ll eat that, but it’s not happening every day. I’m mostly a beef girl.

Stronger skin, hair and nails. My hair and nails seem to me to be stronger when I include collagen, and it promotes wound healing, so I’m keeping it.

I’m getting older, just like everybody else. 

If only he’d been taking collagen all these years…

As we age, our bodies have a harder and harder time utilizing the protein we eat. We need more protein, not less, as our bodies become less efficient. (That’s a good YT video in the link.)

At the same time, our appetites decrease. In my case, I don’t seem to have reached that stage yet. I eat like a very hungry bear (I almost said “horse”, but no grains here). But I do want to maintain my current fat percentage, and I’m still hoping against hope to recompose away this last bit of floppy mommy-belly, so simply eating more isn’t going to work for my needs. It stands to reason that, if I can get an extra serving or two of collagen in some way that is easy for my body to absorb, but doesn’t add another 6 ounces of meat to my already-full plate, I can benefit from that.

I haven’t gotten too far into that senior category yet, but I am at the age where we start seeing the fine lines and wrinkles. Well, you see the fine lines and wrinkles. I can’t see me at all without a magnifying mirror because now I need glasses, too. Even carnivores are going to age and die. I’m on my way to that fair land!

I do credit my meat-heavy diet for my younger-than-my-age looks, though. Unless everybody I know is lying to me, I don’t look my age, nor do I look like I’ve had and nursed eight babies. When I look in the mirror, I see a forty-five year old woman. But I’ve been told many times, almost every time I go out, that I look ten years younger. I didn’t always use collagen, so it’s probably more the general healthy lifestyle I’m living, but…well, I’m vain. I want to hold onto that for as long as I can, and if a supplement of collagen might help with that, I’m doing it!

Now, if you see me out sometime and think I look my age or more, I understand. I think so, too. But be nice. Let me keep this dream going, ok?

Are there contraindications? Well, you can exacerbate kidney stones and other oxalate problems in some cases. Collagen can turn to oxalate in the body, and some individuals are more prone to overproduce their own oxalate already. And, as with so many other things, insulin resistance makes oxalate problems far more likely, so if you’re on a carnivore diet, a higher collagen intake is probably (in my fairly educated opinion) far less risky than if you’re dumping it on top of a high-carb diet. Nonetheless, if you are doing a carnivore way of eating to reduce kidney stones or other oxalate-related health problems, I wouldn’t advise taking extra collagen. Just eat the gristly bits and skin, like the carnivores say.

Now, why isn’t this diet perfect without supplements? For some people, I do think it is! If somebody is young enough when they get started, or if they had been fairly healthy beforehand, and if they’ve got every other health factor, like sunshine, exercise, sleep, etc., nailed down, or if they’re just lucky and haven’t suffered much impact from their standard diet yet, everything they need, and nothing they don’t need, should be found in meat. But some of us–probably most of us–do have farther to go to get to optimal health, and carry a bigger burden from our years of plant food, and can use a little extra help.

Collagen is one of those supplements that I find more likely to be useful than not.