Tuesday, March 10, 2015

...and besides that ...

As reported yesterday, the gelatin i've been supplementing for the last five months definitely has an effect, but it's not all that easy to tease out the specifics.  There has been no other change in my diet or supplement regimen to explain the reduction of grey in my hair, and from the very beginning i've seen less "protein desire" in my food intake as a whole.  But gut-health...?  I THINK it's better.

In the fall i ran out of the bottle of betaine-HCl i had around, and i delayed getting another because i was using it so seldom.  Thanksgiving day, we whooped it up with champagne* and i got that old familiar too-low-stomach-acid feeling, but trying to improve it with vinegar just didn't do the job.  I seem to have kindled an H.pylori flare which answered to epizote, but which hasn't completely gone away.  My stomach has required extra care since then, but my intestines have been quite happy...

...EXCEPT when i eat a heavy load of vegetables.  VEGETABLES (and that's a colon issue).  Throughout the winter, i've had some wheat-cheats every couple of weeks that haven't distressed me.  I had a bean-cheat last week (CHILI -- ahhhh!) which was not a problem, cuz i soaked the beans over 24 hours till they went bubbly, rinsed well, cooked, rinsed again, and diluted with a LOT of ground beef.  :-D

I credit an extended period of grain-avoidance for having healed my gut, long before i started the gelatin experiment.  When we visit a fine restaurant these days, i occasionally (NOT regularly) indulge in a gluten-containing specialty, but usually it has to be DAMNED special to tempt me.  On those rare occasions when i do, i get very little repercussion -- my bad knee is still a bit bad, but my good knee is better.  THAT is the coalmine's canary.  I know my gut is better, but has the gelatin helped?  Can't tell.

Other joints seem happier -- nice and flexible.  Pain-free, except the right knee, and it was actually injured a few years ago.  I don't notice any significant changes in my skin or nails -- those were always pretty strong.  It only JUST occurred to me to look at the ends of my hair -- i haven't cut it in a year, but i don't see the kind of split ends i used to see back in my low-fat days.  The pull-to-break test shows the proper effect.

Is gelatin beneficial and worth taking daily?  YES, i firmly believe it.  I think we have a special need for the amino acids in broth, beyond what we get from eating muscle-meat.  Would broth be better than the powdered gelatin i use?  Probably, but that requires more work, planning and discipline.  Putting the Great Lakes product in my first morning cuppa is EASY.

Perhaps when i run out of the hydrolyzed collagen i'll look into the cartilage supplement on which were based so many of the positive studies described in "Nourishing Broth."  HC itself underwhelmed me, but it was a little easier to use -- you don't have to dissolve it in cold water before adding to a hot liquid, and it can also be utilized cold.  If i were to start the experiment again from the beginning, i might start with the HC rather than the G, to eliminate the confounder.  As it is, i'm happy with gelatin.
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*  what is it with champagne???  it's worse for my histamine issues, too, than other wines are....

16 comments:

  1. "What is it with champagne???" It's great to drink but it definitely has more affect on me than wine .......

    Interested in your comment about Broth - when growing up my mum was always making broth, it was always good for you and so warming - but it did seem to go out of fashion for a while.

    However, now it's been making a bit of a come back and many nutritionists, health coaches and healthy eating cooks are extolling broth for its many nutrients, such as magnesium, calcium and amino acids, and its benefits, such as healing a damaged gut, making skin look more youthful (it’s the collagen) and improving joint and bone health.

    Should we be spreading the word about broth?

    All the best Jan

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    1. yes, broth deserves having its virtues extolled! :-) i've always loved soup, but only within the last few years have i come to appreciate home-made broth.

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  2. I've got to start using more gelatin. Thanks for blogging about it. I have some on my shelf.. just have to remember to get it out.

    I can't wait to see more about the gut microbes and their effect in the next 5-10 years. Very interesting stuff. And yes, healing up before n=1 is good.

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    1. you're welcome! :-) gelatin certainly deserves having its virtues extolled!

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  3. For broth, is it as simple as boiling up some bones in water for a few hours and is it better to boil them from raw or to roast them first? Do you add onions or any other vegetable? Salt/pepper? Sorry for so many questions!

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    1. ask all the questions you like! if i don't know the answers, others here probably do! :-) i've tried using carcass bones, as some websites suggest, but i find that the product is pretty flavorless, although there's probably a lot of nutritional goodness in it.

      i prefer to start with oxtail, or with bony chicken parts like necks, backs, and FEET. i do like to brown them first, but it's far from necessary. i also tend to throw in vegetables that need to be used up (garlic, onions, carrots, celery, parsley ... but not things like turnips), ... but again, i also sometimes cook it "plain." a little pepper, yes -- but it's better to add salt after the concentration of flavor is right, because you may have to cook it down quite a bit, and you don't want the salt to be too strong.

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    2. Tess, did you use your new pressure-cooker for the broth? I just can't imagine making a broth without it.
      @Elsa, there is no rules set in stone for making broths - it is an opportunistic kind of food - whatever you have goes into it. Some people even add a whole onion with skin left - it gives your broth a nice golden color. I like to put there several whole garlic cloves and a whole carrot.
      I usually keep a zip-lock for a bone collecting in my freezer, and use the content when necessary. Bones or meat for a broth could be pre-roasted or raw, I like to add some cut with a lot of cartilage like pigs feet , smoked pigs cheek meat may add a nice smoky flavor.

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    3. the last batch i made was in the pressure cooker, and i think it came out very full of minerals. it was done in amazingly short time, too!

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  4. I'm upping my gelatin to experiment on my bum left knee. It doesn't pain me but it pops loudly! Annoying and I think it has to do with an osteophyte (bone spur) under the patellar tendon. So, my new regimen is gelatin in am coffee and a slug before bed. BID dosing! I'll let you know if anything changes. Great post!

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    1. thanks, Lauren! do please keep us informed!

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  5. I guess the old tradition of adding a teaspoon of backing powder at the beginning of cooking beans may affect the quality of beans even further.

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    1. i've heard of the baking soda trick but i've never used it -- i just looked up what it's supposed to accomplish! apparently, it's all about helping make the beans get tender. i'd rather spend the time on a LONG soak, and not rush the cooking process, since i think breaking down the polysaccharides as much as possible is what makes them more digestible. :-)

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    2. Both me and my husband don't eat beans - in his case even Binos doesn't help well enough to prevent flatulence, but my son has got used to eating beans while living on his own, so I had to learn how to prepare it.I do give beans a good overnight soak in a salted water (the recommendation of American Test Kitchen) , rinse it, put it in a fresh water, rinse again before cooking, cook in an unsalted water with a tsp of baking soda till soft, then remove beans from the liquid and add whatever to season, broth and fat . The boiling time shortens incredibly, and beans keep their shape while soft inside.

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  6. Thank you all for your answers. I have just acquired a pressure cooker so off to make a load of broth this weekend. I like to try to eat healthily but am a really lazy cook so it sounds like just the thing for me.

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    1. Elsa, if you are a lazy cook, pressure cooker is the thing for you - you can do even roasts there in 30 minutes (check the necessary time before you cook anything). I never make less than a gallon of soup, than freeze it in a cup-sized containers - saves time when you in a harry or in a lazy mood.

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  7. I've made bone broth w/the pressure cooker as well as the "old-fashioned" way w/48-hr simmer... Much more marrow seemed to be extracted w/the long slow method; the resulting "concentrate" needed dilution & I used Woo's trick of mixing in Greek yogurt to make it more palatable. I was still shocked to pay $2.49/lb for SOUP BONES so I haven't made any recently :-(

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