How To Choose Vegan Collagen Supplements

Do you know what key components to look for in collagen supplements, even if you're a Vegan or Vegetarian?

This week, I want to explore beauty.Specifically building our toolkit for beauty using collagen. 

As we age, we begin noticing a decrease in our college and production. Typically around the age of 30 our skin begins to lose the elasticity and we start developing those fine lines and other signs of aging.

While I’m all for getting older and I celebrate every revolution around the sun, I feel there is no need to look my age, meaning if I can nourish my body from the inside out and help it to age gracefully, I'm here for it and I hope you are too. 

So today let's talk collagen and why or how it's become one of the most popular supplements on the market.

The thing is we all need collagen. Specifically, you want to look for high quality collagen supplements because they support healthy weight management, they promote skin elasticity, help strengthen your hair and nails, which you know I’m all about! They help you support bone and joint health. And it helps encourage muscle mass, which if you're on any kind of health journey is beneficial.

Again, with college and supplements, gaining so much popularity. I want to take today to really talk about what you should be looking for in your supplementation. Now, when you're looking for a collagen, listen, you want a diverse amino acid blend, mainly because our bodies require 20 different amino acids to function properly. So the more amino acids, the better it is for our bodies.

Look for hydrolyzed collagen peptides - the collagen peptide is broken down so it's more easily absorbed by our body and more easily digested. And speaking of digestion, if your college also has digestive enzymes in it, a specific digestive enzyme to break down collagen, this will help ensure that your body can use the amino acids, meaning you'll really be able to utilize the college and that you're supplementing.

Be sure that there are no fillers because quite frankly, they're not necessary and they can actually limit the efficacy of your collagen. Sugar is notorious for inhibiting collagen production. One more reason to limit that intake. 

Another key component is Vitamin C. Vitamin C not only aids in the absorption of the collagen, but it's actually part of the entire natural production for collagen so you're also going to be helping your body increase collagen production by ensuring that there is vitamin C. 

And of course, you want to look for ethically sourced products. The better the source, the better the collagen. 

For those of you who are not vegan or not vegetarian, look for grass fed/pasture raised animals, wild caught fish, or cage-free chickens. They've all been shown to produce a higher quality of collagen. And again, the higher the quality, the easier it is for your body to absorb and the better results people get based on statistics. 

For those who are vegan and or vegetarian, while you're not able to necessarily take a true college and supplement or a traditional college and supplement, you can still nourish your body so that you can help it create more collagen naturally. 

Personally, what I do is I use a collagen supplement and then I add a second collagen builder that helps my body maintain natural production. Now, the thing with looking for a collagen supplement that is for vegan and vegetarian, obviously you're going to want to look at the ingredients because you don't want it to have any of the animal based products. Look for a vegan amino acid blend. I would recommend one that contains glycine, L proline, L hydroxyproline, and L methamphetamine, which are all building blocks which help your body produce natural collagens. 

Also look for it to have hyaluronic acid, which helps keep the skin hydrated and nourished and plump so you have that dewy look because hyaluronic acid holds up to seven times its weight in water. 

Additionally, resveratrol, the key component in red wine that everyone talks about, it's commonly found in grapes and helps to boost your HDL cholesterol (your good cholesterol). 

Lastly, look for biotin which is also known as a Vitamin B7. And it's a water soluble vitamin that is essential for all of the B complexes. While this is not collagen exactly, it will nourish your body with the building blocks it needs. And of course a healthy lifestyle is always beneficial.

Now all of this combined is great. The way I have been supplementing my collagen is I make a shake first thing in the morning, and I utilize both traditional collagen supplements and a vegan and vegetarian friendly collagen.I just throw it all into the blender and I make a shake to start my day. 

Sidenote: I am not a medical professional so definitely check with your medical provider. 

However, these key components will help your body readily absorb and utilize the college and supplements that you're taking, because it doesn't make sense for you to spend so much money on a product that is not ideal for your body and isn’t utilized by your own system. 

A side benefit of adding the collagen into my daily routine is the bloating has gone down. Now I know this might be a little bit too much TMI, but I think it's an important fact because of all of these additional components that I suggested you look for in your collagen supplements. It has been so helpful with digestion and it's helped with decreased bloating!

Share with me what you’ve found works for you!

If you have any questions, please reach out. I'm always here to share additional ways to utilize collagen products or if you're interested in knowing more about different brands, let me know.