At Brodo, we never intended to sell a “beauty product.” Our only focus is on providing real, delicious, healthy food. However, if bone broth contributes to strong, glowing skin, we’ll take it!
Skin is our largest organ and it’s important to take care of it, aesthetics aside. It’s also our barrier against the pathogens, pollutants, and other hazards in our environment. Plus it keeps our insides, well, in!
First, the Causes of Poor Skin Health
Our Food Choices
Have you or has someone you know been called “pizza face”? Well, eating a slice of pizza every now and then isn’t going to make you break out. However, an overall poor diet can contribute to a condition called leaky gut syndrome, which results in toxins leaking out of your gut and into your bloodstream. These toxins can make their way to your skin, resulting in acne and other skin maladies. Poor diet can also increase your risk of developing autoimmune disease, which can manifest as psoriasis and other skin disorders.
Sun Exposure
We all love feeling the sun shine on our faces after winter ends, and it’s a great source of vitamin D. However, too much exposure can cause sunburn, wrinkles, dry skin, and even skin cancer.
Our Beverage Choices
The act of drinking is supposed to hydrate us, but many of us choose beverages that do the opposite! Sugary sodas, alcoholic beverages, coffee, and energy drinks pull water from your body and when that happens, our skin can dry out. Again, moderation is key, but if we don’t make a point to drink water and other hydrating beverages (i.e. bone broth), we can experience dry, itchy, red skin. Moreover, caffeinated and alcoholic beverages can increase stress, and according to WebMD, stress can make skin problems worse.
Washing Away Healthy Oils
Washing your face (and hands, etc.) can help your skin, but washing too much can actually damage it. If your skin is on the oily side, it may be tempting to wash your face often, but lowering stress and moving away from a high-glycemic diet may be a more effective solution.
The Cards that have been Dealt to Us
There are a whole host of reasons for acne, dry skin, oily skin, and so on that are beyond our immediate control. They can often be attributed to hormone imbalances, genetics, or even the weather. However, sometimes we’re told that these issues can’t be fixed except with pills, creams, etc. before we even try holistic approaches. When your body feels out of balance, improving your diet can be a great starting point to better health and better skin.
And this is where bone broth comes in! Check out all of the ways it can boost your skin’s health – often by boosting overall health in the process.
How to Save Your Skin
There are many ways to improve and maintain your skin, and bone broth is one of them. But as you can see, it contains a whole host of benefits for the skin you’re in.
A Great Source of Collagen
We’ve already written an article about how great collagen is for your skin, and how acquiring it through real foods is better than taking powders and pills. Read more about that here!
Collagen may be the best-known protein to promote skin health, but other proteins and amino acids contained in bone broth are extremely important for our body in order to maintain our normal functions. A few examples include:
Collagen – paramount in maintaining healthy hair, skin, and nails
Glycine – helps you get your “beauty sleep” (see what we did there?)
Glutamine – this “bodybuilder” amino acid aids in muscle growth, recovery after a workout, gut health, and more
Glucosamine – your joints will thank you for consuming this!
Alanine – reduces fatigue, supports your muscles, builds brain tissue
Arginine – works to heal sores including acne, contributes to sexual health
If you want to get full-on geeky with us about protein quality, check out this post.
Gut Health Affects Skin Health
Bone broth’s collagen and gelatin can work wonders for your gut. And we’re slowly learning how our gut health impacts the rest of our body’s health – that includes our skin! Good gut health prevents autoimmune disorders, including psoriasis (hint – if you click on the link, you’ll see bone broth is listed as a food that can help prevent psoriasis).
Having leaky gut syndrome can cause toxins to be released into your bloodstream and eventually your skin. The visible end result of that is the enemy of every skincare routine – acne! Bone broth forms a coating in your gut which helps to prevent leaky gut syndrome.
An indirect benefit of bone broth is how it can help prevent sunburn. For the record, we still encourage you to wear your sunscreen. But stay with us – maintaining your gut health helps your immunity and having a strong immune system helps protect against illnesses that may require medication. Certain (very common) medications such as antibiotics cause you to be more susceptible to sunburn.
Hydration
There is a lot of disagreement among health experts on what defines a healthy diet. However they can all agree that staying hydrated is very important for your skin and so much more. Check out our article on how bone broth helps you stay hydrated not only through its water content but also its electrolytes. Well-hydrated skin is less prone to irritation, which means you’re less susceptible to dry, flaky skin. And it’s a snowball effect! Healthy, well-hydrated, moisturized skin will help your body stay hydrated.
Decrease Your Dependence on Skincare Products
What you keep in your refrigerator (or freezer) is just as important as what you keep in your medicine cabinet for your skin. You may even notice that you don’t need certain skincare products as much once you start caring for your gut with a bone broth routine. Swapping out your moisturizer and blemish stick for a cup of rich, delicious bone broth on the daily can save you time, money, and (literally) headaches!
As the saying goes, true beauty comes from within. Perhaps the saying was intended to mean your heart rather than your guts, however our healthy, nourishing, traditional broths are indeed made from the heart.
