Laugh Often, To Laugh Longest!

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Putting The Abs Into Absurdity

We’ve talked before about the health benefits of a broadly positive outlook on life:

Optimism Seriously Increases Longevity!

…and we’re very serious about it, but that’s about optimistic life views in general, and today we’re about not just keeping good humor in questionable circumstances, but actively finding good humor in the those moments—even when the moments in question might not be generally described as good!

After all, laughter really can be the best medicine, for example:

The effect of laughter yoga exercises on anxiety and sleep quality in patients suffering from Parkinson’s disease

From the roots

First a quick recap on de-toothing the psychological aspect of threats, no matter how menacing they may be:

Hello, Emotions: Time For Radical Acceptance!

…which we can then take a step further:

What’s The Worst That Could Happen?

Choose your frame

Do you remember when that hacker hacked and publicized the US Federal no-fly list, after already hacking a nationwide cloud-based security camera company, getting access to more than 150,000 companies’ and private individuals’ security cameras, amongst various other cyber crimes, mostly various kinds of fraud and data theft?

Imagine how she (age 21) must have felt, when being indicted. What do you suppose this hacker had to say for itself under such circumstances?

❝congress is investigating now 🙂

but i stay silly :3 ❞

~ maia arson crimew

…the latter half of which, usually rendered “but I stay silly” or “but we stay silly” has since entered popular Gen-Z parlance, usually after expressing some negative thing, often in a state of powerlessness.

Which is an important life skill if powerlessness is something that is often likely.

It’s important for many Gen-Zs with negligible life prospects economically; it’s equally important for 60-somethings getting cancer diagnoses (statistically the most likely decade to find out one has cancer, by the way), and many other kinds of people younger, older, and in between.

Because at the end of the day, we all start powerless and we all end powerless.

Learned helplessness (two kinds)

In psychology, “learned helplessness” occurs when a person or creature gives up after learning that all and any attempts to resist a Bad Thing™ fail, perhaps even badly. A lab rat may just shut down and sit there getting electroshocked, for example. A person subjected to abuse may stop trying to improve their situation, and just go with the path of least resistance.

But, there’s another kind, wherein someone in a position of absolute powerlessness not only makes their peace with that, but also, decides that the one thing the outside world can’t control, is how they take it. Like the hacker we mentioned earlier.

Sometimes the gallows humor is even more literal, laughing at one’s own impending death. Not as a matter of bravado, but genuinely seeing the funny side.

But how?

Unfortunately, fortunately

The trick here is to “find a silver lining” that is nowhere near enough to compensate for the bad thing—and it may even be worse! But that’s fine:

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to do the dishes before leaving for my vacation. Fortunately, I also forgot to turn the oven off, so the house burning down covered up my messy kitchen”

Writer’s personal less drastic example: today I set my espresso machine to press me an espresso; it doesn’t have an auto-off and I got distracted and it overflowed everywhere; my immediate reaction was “Oh! I have been blessed with an abundance of coffee!”

This kind of silly little thing, on a daily basis, builds a very solid habit for life that allows one to see the funny side in even the most absurd situations, even matters of life and death (can confirm: been there enough times personally—so far so good, still alive to find the remembered absurdity silly).

The point is not to genuinely value the “silver lining”, because half the time it isn’t even one, really, and it is useless to pretend, in seriousness.

But to pretend in silliness? Now we’re onto something, and the real benefit is in the laughs we had along the way.

Because those worst moments? Are probably when we need it the most, so it’s good to get some practice in!

Want more ways to find the funny and make it a life habit?

We reviewed a good book recently:

The Humor Habit: Rewire Your Brain To Stress Less, Laugh More, And Achieve More’er – by Paul Osincup

Stay silly!

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  • How to Eat (And Still Lose Weight) – by Dr. Andrew Jenkinson

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    You may be wondering: what diet is he recommending?

    The answer is: some guiding principles aside…. He’s not recommending a diet, per se.

    What this book does instead is outline why we eat too muchlink is to where we previously had this author as a spotlight featured expert on this topic! Check it out!

    He goes into a lot more detail than we ever could have in our little article, though, and this book is one of those where the reader may feel as though we have had a few classes at medical school. The style, however, is very comprehensible and accessible; there’s no obfuscating jargon here.

    Once we understand the signalling that goes on in terms of hunger/satiety, and the signalling that goes on in terms of fat storage/metabolism, we can simply choose to not give our bodies the wrong signals. Yes, it’s really that simple. It feels quite like a cheat code!

    Bottom line: if you’d like a better understanding of what regulates our body’s “set point” in weight/adiposity, and what can change it (for better or for worse), then this is the book for you.

    Click here to check out How To Eat (And Still Lose Weight), and enjoy eating (while still losing weight)!

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  • Strategic Wellness

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    Strategic Wellness: planning ahead for a better life!

    This is Dr. Michael Roizen. With hundreds of peer-reviewed publications and 14 US patents, his work has been focused on the importance of lifestyle factors in healthy living. He’s the Chief Wellness Officer at the world-famous Cleveland Clinic, and is known for his “RealAge” test and related personalized healthcare services.

    If you’re curious about that, you can take the RealAge test here.

    (they will require you inputting your email address if you do, though)

    What’s his thing?

    Dr. Roizen is all about optimizing health through lifestyle factors—most notably, diet and exercise. Of those, he is particularly keen on optimizing nutritional habits.

    Is this just the Mediterranean Diet again?

    Nope! Although: he does also advocate for that. But there’s more, he makes the case for what he calls “circadian eating”, optimally timing what we eat and when.

    Is that just Intermittent Fasting again?

    Nope! Although: he does also advocate for that. But there’s more:

    Dr. Roizen takes a more scientific approach. Which isn’t to say that intermittent fasting is unscientific—on the contrary, there’s mountains of evidence for it being a healthful practice for most people. But while people tend to organize their intermittent fasting purely according to convenience, he notes some additional factors to take into account, including:

    • We are evolved to eat when the sun is up
    • We are evolved to be active before eating (think: hunting and gathering)
    • Our insulin resistance increases as the day goes on

    Now, if you’ve a quick mind about you, you’ll have noticed that this means:

    • We should keep our eating to a particular time window (classic intermittent fasting), and/but that time window should be while the sun is up
    • We should not roll out of bed and immediately breakfast; we need to be active for a bit first (moderate exercise is fine—this writer does her daily grocery-shopping trip on foot before breakfast, for instance… getting out there and hunting and gathering those groceries!)
    • We should not, however, eat too much later in the day (so, dinner should be the smallest meal of the day)

    The latter item is the one that’s perhaps biggest change for most people. His tips for making this as easy as possible include:

    • Over-cater for dinner, but eat only one portion of it, and save the rest for an early-afternoon lunch
    • First, however, enjoy a nutrient-dense protein-centric breakfast with at least some fibrous vegetation, for example:
      • Salmon and asparagus
      • Scrambled tofu and kale
      • Yogurt and blueberries

    Enjoy!

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  • Nature Valley Protein Granola vs Kellog’s All-Bran – Which is Healthier?

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    Our Verdict

    When comparing Nature Valley Protein Granola to Kellog’s All-Bran, we picked the All-Bran.

    Why?

    While the Protein Granola indeed contains more protein (13g/cup, compared to 5g/cup), it also contains three times as much sugar (18g/cup, compared to 9g/cup) and only ⅓ as much fiber (4g/cup, compared to 12g/cup)

    Given that fiber is what helps our bodies to absorb sugar more gently (resulting in fewer spikes), this is extremely important, especially since 18g of sugar in one cup of Protein Granola is already most of the recommended daily allowance, all at once!

    For reference: the AHA recommends no more than 25g added sugar for women, or 32g for men

    Hence, we went for the option with 3x as much fiber and ⅓ of the sugar, the All-Bran.

    For more about keeping blood sugars stable, see:

    10 Ways To Balance Blood Sugars

    Enjoy!

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  • Cognitive Enhancement Without Drugs

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    Cognitive Enhancement Without Drugs

    Elizabeth Ricker stands before the tranquil ocean, contemplating the vast expanse before her.

    This is Elizabeth Ricker. She’s a Harvard-and-MIT-trained neuroscientist and researcher, who now runs the “Citizen Science” DIY-neurohacking organization, NeuroEducate.

    Sounds fun! What’s it about?

    The philosophy that spurs on her research and practice can be summed up as follows:

    ❝I’m not going to leave my brain up to my doctor or [anyone else]… My brain is my own responsibility, and I’m going to do the best that I can to optimize it❞

    Her goal is not just to optimize her own brain though; she wants to make the science accessible to everyone.

    What’s this about Citizen Science?

    Citizen Science” is the idea that while there’s definitely an important role in society for career academics, science itself should be accessible to all. And, not just the conclusions, but the process too.

    This can take the form of huge experiments, often facilitated these days by apps where we opt-in to allow our health metrics (for example) to be collated with many thousands of others, for science. It can also involve such things as we talked about recently, getting our own raw genetic data and “running the numbers” at home to get far more comprehensive and direct information than the genetic testing company would ever provide us.

    For Ricker, her focus is on the neuroscience side of biohacking, thus, neurohacking.

    I’m ready to hack my brain! Do I need a drill?

    Happily not! Although… Bone drills for the skull are very convenient instruments that make it quite hard to go wrong even with minimal training. The drill bit has a little step/ledge partway down, which means you can only drill through the thickness of the skull itself, before the bone meeting the wider part of the bit stops you from accidentally drilling into the brain. Still, please don’t do this at home.

    What you can do at home is a different kind of self-experimentation…

    If you want to consider which things are genuinely resulting in cognitive enhancement and which things are not, you need to approach the matter like a scientist. That means going about it in an organized fashion, and recording results.

    There are several ways cognitive enhancement can be measured, including:

    • Learning and memory
    • Executive function
    • Emotional regulation
    • Creative intelligence

    Let’s look at each of them, and what can be done. We don’t have a lot of room here; we’re a newsletter not a book, but we’ll cover one of Ricker’s approaches for each:

    Learning and memory

    This one’s easy. We’re going to leverage neuroplasticity (neurons that fire together, wire together!) by simple practice, and introduce an extra element to go alongside your recall. Perhaps a scent, or a certain item of clothing. Tell yourself that clinical studies have shown that this will boost your recall. It’s true, but that’s not what’s important; what’s important is that you believe it, and bring the placebo effect to bear on your endeavors.

    You can test your memory with word lists, generated randomly by AI, such as this one:

    Random Word List Generator

    You’ll soon find your memory improving—but don’t take our word for it!

    Executive function

    Executive function is the aspect of your brain that tells the other parts how to work, when to work, and when to stop working. If you’ve ever spent 30 minutes thinking “I need to get up” but you were stuck in scrolling social media, that was executive dysfunction.

    This can be trained using the Stroop Color and Word Test, which shows you words, specifically the names of colors, which will themselves be colored, but not necessarily in the color the word pertains to. So for example, you might be shown the word “red”, colored green. Your task is to declare either the color of the word only, ignoring the word itself, or the meaning of the word only, ignoring its appearance. It can be quite challenging, but you’ll get better quite quickly:

    The Stroop Test: Online Version

    Emotional Regulation

    This is the ability to not blow up angrily at the person with whom you need to be diplomatic, or to refrain from laughing when you thought of something funny in a sombre situation.

    It’s an important part of cognitive function, and success or failure can have quite far-reaching consequences in life. And, it can be trained too.

    There’s no online widget for this one, but: when and if you’re in a position to safely* do so, think about something that normally triggers a strong unwanted emotional reaction. It doesn’t have to be something life-shattering, but just something that you feel in some way bad about. Hold this in your mind, sit with it, and practice mindfulness. The idea is to be able to hold the unpleasant idea in your mind, without becoming reactive to it, or escaping to more pleasant distractions. Build this up.

    *if you perchance have PTSD, C-PTSD, or an emotional regulation disorder, you might want to talk this one through with a qualified professional first.

    Creative Intelligence

    Another important cognitive skill, and again, one that can be cultivated and grown.

    The trick here is volume. A good, repeatable test is to think of a common object (e.g. a rock, a towel, a banana) and, within a time constraint (such as 15 minutes) list how many uses you can think of for that item.

    Writer’s storytime: once upon a time, I was sorting through an inventory of medical equipment with a colleague, and suggested throwing out our old arterial clamps, as we had newer, better ones—in abundance. My colleague didn’t want to part with them, so I challenged him “Give me one use for these, something we could in some possible world use them for that the new clamps don’t do better, and we’ll keep them”. He said “Thumbscrews”, and I threw my hands up in defeat, saying “Fine!”, as he had technically fulfilled my condition.

    What’s the hack to improve this one? Just more volume. Creativity, as it turns out, isn’t something we can expend—like a muscle, it grows the more we use it. And because the above test is repeatable (with different objects), you can track your progress.

    And if you feel like using your grown creative muscle to write/paint/compose/etc your magnum opus, great! Or if you just want to apply it to the problem-solving of everyday life, also great!

    In summary…

    Our brain is a wonderful organ with many functions. Society expects us to lose these as we get older, but the simple, scientific truth is that we can not only maintain our cognitive function, but also enhance and grow it as we go.

    Want to know more from today’s featured expert?

    You might enjoy her book, “Smarter Tomorrow”, which we reviewed back in March

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  • Is it true foods with a short ingredient list are healthier? A nutrition expert explains

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    At the end of a long day, who has time to check the detailed nutrition information on every single product they toss into their shopping basket?

    To eat healthily, some people prefer to stick to a simple rule: choose products with a short ingredient list. The idea is foods with just a few ingredients are less processed, more “natural” and therefore healthy.

    But is this always the case? Here’s what the length of an ingredient list can and can’t tell you about nutrition – and what else to look for.

    Hryshchyshen Serhii/Shutterstock

    How ingredient lists work

    You can find an ingredient list on most packaged food labels, telling you the number and type of ingredients involved in making that food.

    In Australia, packaged food products must follow certain rules set by the Australian and New Zealand Food Standards Code.

    Ingredients must be listed in order of ingoing weight. This means items at the beginning of the list are those that make up the bulk of the product. Those at the end make up the least.

    Food labels also include a nutrition information panel, which tells you the quantity of key nutrients (energy, protein, total carbohydrates, sugars, total fat, saturated fat and sodium) per serving.

    This panel also tells you the content per 100 grams or millilitres, which allows you to work out the percentage.

    Whole foods can be packaged, too

    Products with just one, two or three items in their ingredient list are generally in a form that closely reflects the food when it was taken from the farm. So even though they come in packaging, they could be considered whole foods.

    “Whole foods” are those that have undergone zero to minimal processing, such as fresh fruit and vegetables, lentils, legumes, whole grains such as oats or brown rice, seeds, nuts and unprocessed meat and fish.

    To support overall health, the Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend eating whole foods and limiting those that are highly processed.

    Many whole foods, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, don’t have an ingredient list because they don’t come in a packet. But some do, including:

    • canned or frozen vegetables, such as a tin of black beans or frozen peas
    • canned fish, for example, tuna in springwater
    • plain Greek yoghurt.

    These sorts of food items can contribute every day to a healthy balanced diet.

    What is an ultra-processed food?

    A shorter ingredient list also means the product is less likely to be an ultra-processed food.

    This describes products made using industrial processes that combine multiple ingredients, often including colours, flavours and other additives. They are hyperpalatable, packaged and designed for convenience.

    Ultra-processed foods often have long ingredient lists, due to added sugars (such as dextrose), modified oils, protein sources (for example, soya protein isolate) and cosmetic additives – such as colours, flavours and thickeners.

    Some examples of ultra-processed foods with long ingredient lists include:

    • meal-replacement drinks
    • plant-based meat imitations
    • some commercial bakery items, including cookies or cakes
    • instant noodle snacks
    • energy or performance drinks.

    If a food is heavily branded and marketed it’s more likely to be an ultra-processed food – a created product, rather than a whole food that hasn’t changed much since the farm.

    Nutrition is more than a number

    Choosing products with a shorter ingredient list can work as a general rule of thumb. But other factors matter too.

    The length of an ingredient list doesn’t tell us anything about the food’s nutritional content, so it’s important to consider the type of ingredients as well.

    Remember that items are listed in order of their ingoing weight, so if sugar is second or third on the list, there is probably a fair bit of added sugar.

    For instance, a food product may have only a few ingredients, but if the first, second or third is a type of fat, oil or sugar, then it may not be an ideal choice for every day.

    You can also check the nutrition information panel. Use the “per serve” column to check the nutrients you’d get from eating one serve of the food. If you want to compare the amount of a nutrient in two different foods, it’s best to look at the per 100g/mL column.

    Some examples of foods with relatively short ingredient lists but high amounts of added fats and sugars include:

    • potato crisps
    • chocolate
    • soft drink.

    Alcoholic beverages such as beer or wine may also have only a few ingredients, but this does not mean that they should be consumed every day.

    Non-food ingredients

    You can also keep an eye out for cosmetic ingredients, which don’t have any nutritional value. These include colours, flavours, emulsifiers, thickeners, sweeteners, bulking agents and gelling agents.

    It sometimes takes a bit of detective work to spot cosmetic ingredients in the list, as they can come under many different names (for example, stabiliser, malted barley extract, methylcellulose). But they are usually always recognisable as non-food items.

    If there are multiple non-food items included in an ingredient list, there is a good chance the food is ultra-processed and not ideal as an everyday choice.

    The bottom line? Choosing foods with a shorter ingredient list can help guide you choose less processed foods. But you should also consider what type of ingredients are being used and maintain a varied diet.

    Margaret Murray, Senior Lecturer, Nutrition, Swinburne University of Technology

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • We Are Such Stuff As Fish Are Made Of

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    Research Review: Collagen

    For something that’s a very popular supplement, not many people understand what collagen is, where it comes from, or what it does.

    In a nutshell:

    Collagen is a kind of protein. Our bodies make it naturally, and we can also get more in our diet and/or take extra as a supplement.

    Our bodies use collagen in connective tissue, skin, tendon, bone, and cartilage. It has many functions, but a broad description would be “holding things together”.

    As we get older, our bodies produce less collagen. Signs of this include wrinkles, loss of skin hydration, and joint pain.

    Quick test: pinch the skin on the middle of the back of one of your hands, and then watch what happens when you let go. How quickly and easily did your skin returns to its original shape?

    If it was pretty much instantaneous and flawless, congratulations, you have plenty of collagen (and also elastin). If you didn’t, you are probably low on both!

    (they are quite similar proteins and are made from the same base “stuff”, so if you’re low on one, you’ll usually be low on both)

    Quick note: A lot of research out there has been funded by beauty companies, so we had our work cut out for us today, and have highlighted where any research may be biased.

    More than skin deep

    While marketing for collagen is almost exclusively aimed at “reduce wrinkles and other signs of aging”, it does a lot more than that.

    You remember we mentioned that many things from the bones outward are held together by collagen? We weren’t kidding…

    Read: Osteoporosis, like skin ageing, is caused by collagen loss which is reversible

    Taking extra collagen isn’t the only way

    We can’t (yet!) completely halt the age-related loss of collagen, but we can slow it, with our lifestyle choices:

    Can I get collagen from food?

    Yep! Just as collagen holds our bodies together, it holds the bodies of other animals together. And, just like collagen is found in most parts of our body but most plentifully in our skin and bones, that’s what to eat to get collagen from other animals, e.g:

    • Chicken skin
    • Fish skin
    • Bone broth ← health benefits and recipes at this link!

    What about vegans?

    Yes, vegans are also held together by collagen! We do not, however, recommend eating their skin or boiling their bones into broth. Ethical considerations aside, cannibalism can give you CJD!

    More seriously, if you’re vegan, you can’t get collagen from a plant-based diet, but you can get the stuff your body uses to make collagen. Basically, you want to make sure you get plenty of:

    Read: Diet and Dermatology: The Role of a Whole-food, Plant-based Diet in Preventing and Reversing Skin Aging

    Just be sure to continue to remember to avoid highly-processed foods. So:

    • Soy mince/chunks whose ingredients list reads: “soya”? Yes!
    • The Incredible Burger or Linda McCartney’s Sausages? Sadly less healthy

    Read: Advanced Glycation End Products in Foods and a Practical Guide to Their Reduction in the Diet

    Meat-eaters might want to read that one too. By far the worst offenders for AGEs (Advanced Glycation End Products, which can not only cause collagen to stiffen, but also inactivate proteins responsible for collagen repair, along with doing much more serious damage to your body’s natural functions) include:

    • Hot dogs
    • Bacon
    • Fried/roasted/grilled meats

    Is it worth it as a supplement?

    That depends on you, your age, and your lifestyle, but it’s generally considered safe*

    *if you have a seafood allergy, be careful though, as many supplements are from fish or shellfish—you will need to find one that’s free from your allergen

    Also, all collagen is animal-derived. So if you’re a vegan, decide for yourself whether this constitutes medicine and if so, whether that makes it ethically permissible to you.

    With that out of the way:

    What the science says on collagen supplementation

    Collagen for skin

    Read: Effects of collagen supplementation on skin aging (systematic review and meta-analysis)

    The short version is that they selected 19 studies with over a thousand participants in total, and they found:

    In the meta-analysis, a grouped analysis of studies showed favorable results of hydrolyzed collagen supplementation compared with placebo in terms of skin hydration, elasticity, and wrinkles.

    The findings of improved hydration and elasticity were also confirmed in the subgroup meta-analysis.

    Based on results, ingestion of hydrolyzed collagen for 90 days is effective in reducing skin aging, as it reduces wrinkles and improves skin elasticity and hydration.

    Caveat: while that systematic review had no conflicts of interests, at least some of the 19 studies will have been funded by beauty companies. Here are two, so that you know what that looks like:

    Funded by Quiris to investigate their own supplement, Elasten®:

    A Collagen Supplement Improves Skin Hydration, Elasticity, Roughness, and Density

    Funded by BioCell to investigate their own supplement, BioCell Collagen:

    The Effects of Skin Aging Associated with the Use of BioCell Collagen

    A note on funding bias: to be clear, the issue is not that the researchers might be corrupt (though that could happen).

    The issue is more that sometimes companies will hire ten labs to do ten research studies… and then pull funding from ones whose results aren’t going the way they’d like.

    So the “best” (for them) study is the one that gets published.

    Here’s another systematic review—like the one at the top of this section—that found the same, with doses ranging from 2.5g–15g per day for 8 weeks or longer:

    Read: Oral Collagen Supplementation: A Systematic Review of Dermatological Applications

    Again, some of those studies will have been funded by beauty companies. The general weight of evidence does seem clear and favorable, though.

    Collagen for bones

    Here, we encountered a lot less in the way of potential bias, because this is simply marketed a lot less. Despite being arguably far more important!

    We found a high quality multi-vector randomized controlled study with a sample size of 131 postmenopausal women. They had these women take 5g collagen supplement (or placebo), and studied the results over the course of a year.

    They found:

    • The intake of the supplement increased bone mineral density (BMD)
    • Supplementation was also associated with a favorable shift in bone markers, indicating:
      • increased bone formation
      • reduced bone degradation

    Read: Specific Collagen Peptides Improve Bone Mineral Density and Bone Markers in Postmenopausal Wome

    A follow-up study with 31 of these women found that taking 5 grams of collagen daily for a total of 4 years was associated with a progressive increase in BMD.

    You might be wondering if collagen also helps against osteoarthritis.

    The answer is: yes, it does (at least, it significantly reduces the symptoms)

    Read: Effect of collagen supplementation on osteoarthritis symptoms

    In summary:

    • You need collagen for health skin, bones, joints, and more
    • Your body makes collagen from your food
    • You can help it by getting plenty of protein, vitamins, and minerals
    • You can also help it by not doing the usual Bad Things™ (smoking, drinking, eating processed foods, especially processed meats)
    • You can also eat collagen directly in the form of other animals’ skin and bones
    • You can also buy collagen supplements (but watch out for allergens)

    Want to try collagen supplementation?

    We don’t sell it (or anything else), but for your convenience, here’s an example product on Amazon 😎

    Take care!

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