[Kevin]
Welcome back to another episode of Nutrition for Noobs. I'm the Chief Noob, Kevin.

[Michelle]
And I'm Michelle. I'm your, not noob, I guess I'm your nutrition nerd, your nutritionist, etc.

[Kevin]
You are our teacher, Grasshopper.

[Michelle]
Do you know that, well, maybe you do remember this. I'm trying to think if this is before Kevin or after Kevin. I used to be a dance teacher.

[Kevin]
Yes, oh, I knew that.

[Michelle]
I knew that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was I teaching dance when we met?

[Kevin]
You were. You were teaching like part time at a studio in London. And I think you were starting to get annoyed with it or something because there was politics Well, it was just getting too hard with work.
To balance and young kids.

[Michelle]
Yeah. But I loved it. I did it for like 15 years.
It's top of mind because a friend of mine just told me today, oh, hey, I work with so and so. And apparently used to teach her dance. And I was like, oh, my gosh, it feels like another lifetime.

[Kevin]
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's one of those typical scenarios where the teacher, you know, after so many years comes back and meets their adult student or hears about their adult students and you know, it's like all those tearjerker Hallmark movies about you were my teacher and now I'm falling in love with you.
No, no.

[Michelle]
That's a different movie. It really, it really was one of the most rewarding times of my life. And but now I've no longer have a desire to stand in front of 40 feet of mirrors.

[Kevin]
That's a good disincentive for not being a dance instructor. I can imagine.

[Michelle]
Not that there's any not that there's any body image here, the problems here. But yeah, anyway, it's still it's still tough.

[Kevin]
There's nowhere to hide with 40 feet of mirrors. I had a view behind you and all that. So enough idle chitchat, because that's what people tuned in for.

[Michelle]
Yes. Let's get down to business.

[Kevin]
Exactly. But just before we get down to business, I normally say this at the end, but I'm going to mix it up and say at the beginning, just in case people skip the credits. So if you want to send us a question or if you have a suggested topic for us, you can connect with us on Facebook or email us at n, the number four, n-o-o-b-s at gmail.com.
We love to hear from you. And all the links are in the show notes.

[Michelle]
I love to hear from listeners. Actually, we have a listener question today.

[Kevin]
We do. Oh, amazing.

[Michelle]
Okay.

[Kevin]
On what topic?

[Michelle]
Collagen. They want to know what is the deal with collagen. They see all these products for collagen, like products that you can put on your skin, products that you can ingest and want to know, are they, are they good or are they bad?

[Kevin]
That's a great question because you know how much I know about collagen? How much? Basically, nothing.
All, everything I know about collagen comes from either celebrity gossip magazines about someone injected. Look at their lips. They look like Daffy Duck with all the collagen or else as the listener stated, like skincare product ads about enhanced with collagen and B-alpha, beta, meta, vitamin, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And I have no idea. It sounds good, but all I think of is like fat because people inject it in their lips.

[Michelle]
So that's what I think of when I hear collagen. I think the Kardashians are some of the celebrities that really promote having these collagen skin rituals, et cetera. But you know what?
This is one of my biggest pet peeves. These products, in my opinion, I'm going to say in my opinion, are a bunch of BS.

[Kevin]
Well it always strikes me as snake oil because they always have these ingredients that sound quasi scientific, but also sound like a marketing name, like a brand. And, and it's like, you know, you really have to wonder about the science.

[Michelle]
So educate us. There's so much to unpack here. So, you know, I was first educated on this issue of collagen.
Let's just start with skincare products. Okay. Gosh, it's gotta be about 20 years ago now when I went, um, 15 to 20, somewhere in there.
I went to a really cool nutrition conference. Don't, it's a very long story, but I went to Malaysia.

[Kevin]
Okay, cool.

[Michelle]
And, and there was this scientist, uh, that was talking to us about, uh, different skincare and supplementation and things like that. And that was the first time I heard the statement that the collagen molecule is too large to be absorbed by the gut or by the, like into, into the lining.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
Um, therefore anything that you put on your skin that claims to be, you know, boosted with collagen or what, whatever is, is, is basically going to feel soft when you put it on your skin.

[Kevin]
Right.

[Michelle]
But then you're going to wash it off. Because it's too large. It's too large to absorb.

[Kevin]
Oh, okay. So it feels it, you've got that immediate moisture effect just by having, you know, you could do that with olive oil or something.

[Michelle]
Or whatever, whatever else is in the product. So, so it makes you codependent on the cream because you think, oh, I only feel good when I put the cream on, but it doesn't actually doing anything to change the constitution of your skin.

[Kevin]
It's just that purely physical, that physical.

[Michelle]
Right.

[Kevin]
Having that stuff on your skin until you wash it off. Interesting.

[Michelle]
So keep in mind this, when I first heard that piece of information, which was very interesting to me, I mean, everything's interesting to me, but I was really at the very, very beginning of my journey in studying nutrition. So I knew almost nothing yet at that point, but I never forgot that. That one piece of information.
Right. Because, um, like I just, I just love, um, learning the truth about stuff. So I never forgot that.
And it was useful to me when I was starting to study this, but, um, let me tell you like, so that is absolutely true, but let me tell you a little bit. Why? So what is collagen in the first place?
Do you even know? Kevin, do you know what, I'm not trying to make you, you know, call you out or anything, but I just wondered how stupid I am.

[Kevin]
No, I get it. That's, that's my role. That's my role in this podcast.
You can't have two smart people on a podcast. Cause then you just be correcting yourself, correcting each other.

[Michelle]
It's not about being smart or dumb. Like, why, why do you, why do you even need to know that piece of information as an average?

[Kevin]
And, and the ads never, well in the, and the skincare product ads never explain what it is. So no, it's just this mystical thing hanging out there that you need. Exactly.
So, so I always associate it with some sort of a fat simply because I know the people inject it and it puffs up their lips and other parts of their body.

[Michelle]
So that's my, are you thinking of Botox?

[Kevin]
No, no, no, no. You inject collagen in your lips, don't you? Or am I, am I confusing this?
I don't read enough celebrity gossip mags, I guess.

[Michelle]
You might be right. And I just, whenever I see those things, I skip over them because I consider it such BS. But so collagen is a type of protein.

[Kevin]
So nothing to do with fat. Okay. I am a hundred percent wrong.
And there we go. That is why I am the noob, ladies and gentlemen. That's okay.
Yes, okay.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So do you remember when I was in the protein episode, when I was explaining that there's really, we think of protein as the, as the muscle building tissue building molecule, but there's actually many different types of molecules. Like they're all sort of proteins and they have slightly different compositions of amino acids.
So, so collagen is one, one type of a protein molecule. It is reportedly, I just checked to make sure that this was still the case, but, but reputable sources like, like Harvard and Cleveland clinic are still using the line that it's 30% of total proteins in the human body.

[Kevin]
Oh, wow.

[Michelle]
So it's very, very, very prevalent. There are, there are like something like 28 different types of, of collagen because, and the reason it's so prevalent is it's in so many tissues. So it provides structure to skin, bones, tendons, ligaments.
It's also another type of collagen is found in cartilage. So in, it provides joint support. There's another sort of version of collagen that is found in muscles and in arteries and in organs.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
There is collagen in our skin. There's another type that is found in the cornea of our eyes. There's some in the skin and the hair, our hair.
And it's also, if you're pregnant, it's in the tissue of your placenta.

[Kevin]
It is everywhere. And I've actually, yeah. And, and actually the hair rings a bell because I've also heard of collagen infused shampoos.

[Michelle]
Yeah. Collagen shampoo.

[Kevin]
Create body and moisture and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. More snake oil, I'm sure.

[Michelle]
Again, the hair products in particular, I just make me laugh because like your hair doesn't grow from the end.

[Kevin]
From the scalp people, from the scalp.

[Michelle]
How are you going to topically put something on? Like it already grew. It's kind of done, right?

[Kevin]
Yeah. It's already dead. That's why it doesn't hurt when you cut your hair because it's no longer alive.

[Michelle]
Oh, so let's just then talk about this big molecule. So it's a, it's a, a triple helix molecule, which, which just really signifies the fact that it's, that it's really big.

[Kevin]
It's made up of primarily very, very big molecule. It's a big molecule, but we're not going to body shame this molecule. The bigger, the better.

[Michelle]
I say you're on fire today.

[Kevin]
I am. I am on something. I don't know.

[Michelle]
I'm also full disclosure. I'm very tired. So I actually like, everything is funny to me right now.

[Kevin]
And I'm still a little bit jet lagged. So, you know, I'm also, so it's going to be a great episode. I love it.

[Michelle]
It is where like people are going to either be thrilled or they're going to be annoyed.

[Kevin]
Or they've already tuned out by now, you know.

[Michelle]
I hope not. Please tune in noobs. So we, uh, this triple helix, it's there.
I think there's something like, I can't remember Kevin. I think there's like something like 16 or 19 total amino acids. In collagen.
However, there's, there's three main ones and they're the ones that really matter the most. And it's, um, glycine proline and hydroxy proline. So those kind of make up the majority of it.
But because it's, it's this big triple helix, that's the reason why it can absorb in the GI tract because the GI tract, uh, can't absorb any amino acid chain that is more than three amino acids. We've got these three main ones, but we've got these other, I don't know, like 14 to 16 or whatever other amino acids traveling along with it. So like, this is the whole reason why I said, like, when we, when we eat our food, it is broken down into, it's a component amino acids and those component amino acids absorb.
Right. So like that's the whole purpose of, of having that, that stomach acid, uh, break your food down so that it can absorb.

[Kevin]
So basically the collagen has the collagen itself, this big molecule has to be broken down before the individual bits that make up the, the collagen can be absorbed.

[Michelle]
Correct. So this is the whole reason why I think proton collagen powders are snake oil, because it's just another protein. It's you, as soon as you add that to your smoothie, like collagen, isn't going to like magically float through, like into your skin and into your tissues, your stomach acid is going to break it down into its components.

[Kevin]
Right. But to play devil's advocate for minutes, if collagen, the, the, the big molecule is good for your skin, wouldn't there be some benefit because by eating collagen, you're adding the component amino acids to your diet or to your, so wouldn't there be some benefit to your, your skin and your body generally, just by adding more of these underlying amino acids through the collagen? I told you, you were not dumb.
Oh my God. I got something right. I need to add a sound effect.

[Michelle]
So I want to, I want to validate your thinking, but then I also want to say about a big butt.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
So don't talk about you're absolutely right. So you don't even have a big butt.

[Kevin]
This is a podcast people can't see. And ladies and gentlemen, Michelle needs a moment to be able to breathe again.

[Michelle]
Sometimes I just can't believe what comes out of your mouth.

[Kevin]
I can't believe either.

[Michelle]
And to believe, and you're a dad, this is, this must be, you're like, you're like single time when you don't have to.

[Kevin]
This is exactly it. I can just take all the filters off and just go crazy. Everything I've been bottling up for the past, like weeks, I can just let go.
Cause this is a safe space.

[Michelle]
Everyone is, this is a safe space for Kevin. Everyone. He is not parenting here.
He can be. Okay. So I've often, I've often told that to people that if you have an insufficient diet, that you are going to get benefit, you know, I guess potentially by ingesting collagen powder, because whatever amino acid you were deficient in, you're now going to have, but the thing is there's a few things.
There's a few things, actually.

[Kevin]
There's a few butts, several butts. Oh, it's a whole chain of butts. Okay.

[Michelle]
First, but the first spot is you have no guarantee that that's the protein molecule that your body's going to make out of the amino acid pool. Cause it's going to prioritize whatever it needs. So it might be, it might be a collagen molecule that day, but it might be a hormone or if you need something, a neurotransmitter or it might be, right?
So you don't have any guarantee. That's where it's going to go. Also, you don't have any guarantee about the absorbability or the, or the quality of what's in these powder powders there.
It's an unregulated portion of the industry. Unless there's, you know, a very specific certification that they have paid for to have a third party verify, you can only even have a guarantee that what it says on the label is actually in the powder. Like this is, this is one of my big problems with the, with the supplement industry.
Right.

[Kevin]
And I have heard, I have heard that before that it's a bit of the wild West and people can basically claim so long as you don't guarantee on the packaging, you know, guaranteed to cure blindness or whatever it is, you can say anything you want.

[Michelle]
And it's not like there aren't good, reputable companies out there and good reputable products. Cause there are, it's just that, you know, I can, unless you.

[Kevin]
Well, one bad apple can ruin the entire lot. And so supplements generally can get a bad rep.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
You know, there's a few companies, you know, a few bad operators out there.

[Michelle]
But, but here's, here's the main thing for me, collagen, collagen is not really considered to be something that a majority of people are typically deficient in. Right. So like, it's not like we have a massive global collagen deficiency problem.
It's not like iodine, but, you know, there are, there are things that can contribute to your body, you know, not sufficiently producing collagen and lack of a complete diet is the major one. And let me, let me tell you why. So and then we'll talk about some of the other things like lifestyle factors that can contribute to collagen production.
But when we talk about glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline, so glycine, well, actually all of these are very prevalent in animal-based foods, of course. But there's also a very significant number of plant-based foods that you can get these from. So like glycine, for example, seeds, beans, lentils, granola, and proline, soy, beans, legumes, buckwheat, a whole bunch of vegetables, cabbage, chives, asparagus, cucumber, alfalfa sprouts, more.
And then hydroxyproline, beans, lentils, again, soy or tofu, tempeh, quinoa, nuts, seeds, alfalfa sprouts, whole grains. If you're following that Canada's Food Guide that we talked about in episode two, you're eating fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes. Good variety.
And you've got good quality protein sources, which can be a little bit of meat, but also don't forget the legumes and the nuts and the seeds. If you were eating a balanced diet, you will not be deficient in your body's ability to produce this collagen molecule. And actually, what the body naturally produces is what matters.
What you put on topically or what you can ingest in some magical collagen juice, collagen drink, you want to just make sure that your body has what it needs, no matter what the molecule is. Never mind collagen. We are a complex adaptive system.
And I get really fired up at what T. Colin Campbell calls reductionism. It's when we laser focus in on just one thing and we forget about the context of the whole.
We forget about how the body synthesizes things and how things work in concert together. So you could save a whole lot of money if you just address the nutritional deficiency and then modify some lifestyle factors that might be contributing to collagen loss if this is something that concerns you. And leave the powders and the collagen-boosted supplements or products or whatever on the shelf.
Because here, let me just give you a little bit of, I did a little bit of a price comparison here. My sort of tagline whenever somebody asks me about should they add collagen powder to their smoothie as well, it's just extremely expensive protein powder. So my answer would be no.
So it's just a protein powder that has a different amino acid makeup in it, but it is a protein powder nonetheless. So a regular, just order of magnitude. And there's no reason for one of these to be more expensive than the other, except for the marketing hype, OK?
Because protein powders, regular on average, are about $40-$50 a kilogram. Now, you can get more expensive than that if you want to get the super bougie protein powder.

[Kevin]
Yeah, exactly.

[Michelle]
But collagen powders, I did a comparison looking at a prominent, I'm just going to say supplement company as well as Amazon. They average $90 plus per kilogram.

[Kevin]
Wow. So basically double more or less.

[Michelle]
Yeah. Yeah.

[Kevin]
Wow. Just because... For the same protein.
Yeah, yeah. Exactly. Just for the marketing.

[Michelle]
It's just another protein powder.

[Kevin]
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But collagen is a hot name and, you know, people are talking about it in which case it was, you know, they can raise the price and you don't even necessarily know that you're getting pure collagen because it's unregulated.

[Michelle]
And I wasn't... And in that comparison, Kevin, just to be fair, I wasn't choosing the cheapest protein powder. I went with a prominent brand that people very commonly buy.
Apples to apples, like $40 a kilogram to $90 a kilogram. Bag of lentils, $10 to $20 a kilogram. And it'll have all of your, you know, commonly deficient amino acids to make good collagen.

[Kevin]
Well, and the interesting thing is like between the two powders, just, you know, leaving the lentils aside from it, even just between the two powders, as you said earlier, your body's going to, even though you're, you know, trying to target your skin with the collagen, the double the price, your body's going to use the protein, that powder, the way it needs and the way that it feels it's the most deficient. So even though you're taking this, you know, powder that's supposed to be amazing for your skin, it might not eventually go to your skin.
So you're spending all this money for, you know, maybe a super healthy kidney or something, I don't know, but, or, you know, placenta, who knows? But I mean, not me, but, you know, generally, you know, so it's interesting that, you know, to your point, you're spending double the money for something you can't even control.

[Michelle]
Absolutely. And, and, you know, what you can control is your diet. Yes.
And it's not like these are super crazy foods. Like, so you have some granola for breakfast, you have a salad for lunch, and you make sure you have some beans and legumes on your plate at dinner. It's not super crazy foods, right?

[Kevin]
It's not rocket science, people.

[Michelle]
So put that extra $70 into your groceries or, or get yourself four kilograms of lentils and you're good.

[Kevin]
That'll last you for months.

[Michelle]
A lot longer than that collagen powder. Well, so yeah, I get, I get, I get, you know, it, this is, I get so hyped up about this because I get so annoyed when, when we're lied to or when, you know, people are influenced into doing something that, you know, isn't really necessary. Right.

[Kevin]
People drive me crazy. There's marketing, but there's also like, people are always looking for a quick fix and like, oh, if I just take this pill, everything will be great. But ultimately, and here's a tagline.
I can sense a tagline coming up. Wait a second. Wait a second.

[Michelle]
Do we need a theme song for this?

[Kevin]
We do. We do. The best quick fix is a balanced diet.
There you go. There's the fireworks going off. Okay.
Oh my God. Is this episode almost over? Okay.

[Michelle]
So, so let's, let's talk about the other things that can influence collagen production. So collagen production does decrease as we age, as do does the production of many things. The hydrochloric acid in our gut, we, you know, decreases a bit as we age.
And that, that can be another reason why absorbability of some things can be impacted like in elderly people, et cetera, as they, as they age, because they just simply don't have enough hydrochloric acid to break the foods down. Right.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
But as we age, it does slowly decrease a little bit. Smoking damages collagen. Sun exposure damages collagen.
So if you're slathering yourself in collagen product, and then you're, you know, going on vacation in Cuba and you're just laying out there frying in the sun all day.

[Kevin]
Well, and ultimately you're going to sweat off the product within 10 minutes anyways, because it's not going into your skin. So it's just going to like swoosh off.

[Michelle]
And, and ingesting additional collagen powder isn't going to give you any gain. If you are getting overexposure in the sun now, I know, I know a lot of us don't, don't do that much anymore. I think it was much more popular, you know, in the seventies and eighties when people were putting baby oil on themselves, literally.
Yeah. But there, but there is still, I think a fair amount of sun worship in those tanning salons are just the same. You know, damaging the skin ultraviolet light generally, but this one might surprise you.
Nutritionfacts.org did something on this. There's a video on this that even the light that comes from your computer screen or your tablet or iPad or cell phone actually damages the skin, decreases the collagen production.

[Kevin]
Okay. I'm turning my screen off now.

[Michelle]
Well, I don't, I don't think it says much. Yeah.

[Kevin]
I don't think it's a minimal amount.

[Michelle]
I'm not sure it's much of a, of a problem when, you know, you're just doing normal use. I'm just thinking of the kids that lay in bed with right in front of their face. Yeah.
Yeah. And are gaming and, and gaming a lot of hours. But you know what?
I'm in front of a computer a fair amount of hours a day. So that was a wonder.

[Kevin]
Yeah, exactly. I'm going to have to stay a little bit further away.

[Michelle]
Eat your asparagus and your, and your quinoa and your lentils and have a handful of nuts and seeds.

[Kevin]
Exactly.

[Michelle]
You know, so those are, uh, yeah. Insufficient diet, sun exposure, uh, smoking, uh, cell phone or computer screen use and UV light. Yeah.
So those are all modifiable, modifiable. The only one that isn't is aging. So, yeah, but we shouldn't be afraid to age.

[Kevin]
Aging is beautiful.

[Michelle]
It is. It is. Like the one thing that we can control is how we age.
So we can just choose to eat this and not that we can and choose to keep the main thing, the main thing we can, we can choose to move our bodies, et cetera. But let's talk about some of the ways that we, you know, might, how we might feel if we were feeling that we had, you know, disrupted college and production, or maybe, you know, in whatever insufficiencies are leading to that.

[Kevin]
Okay.

[Michelle]
So, you know, actually I have a real life example for me that, you know, I don't mind sharing this. It's a little bit personal, but when I had my, uh, my, my first pregnancy, um, you know, and this is a way back when this is old Michelle, who lived off of fast food and microwave foods and, uh, you know, a pale, a coffee a day. And I like that Michelle.
I was a, I was a closet smoker.

[Kevin]
Like I remember that we bonded over cigarettes sometimes on smoke breaks because I was also a closet smoker. If you recall, oh, the secrets are coming out. It's horrible.

[Michelle]
I'd forgotten that about you. You know that? Because I was thinking mainly that guy, Jeff, that I used to work with.

[Kevin]
That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Michelle]
Yeah. But that was around the same time. So like I had a terrible, terrible diet and when I was pregnant with my son, I went out and bought all, all of the products that everybody was toting that was going to prevent stretch marks.
And I was putting like pure wheat germ and other stuff and rubbing it on my belly every day. And then one day, um, you know, I got very big. I was in the last trimester and you don't really see under, right.
Unless you're in a mirror at a certain angle. And then I was completely aghast.

[Kevin]
I was like, you were covered in wheat germ.

[Michelle]
It was covered in stretch marks. And, you know, the, the conventional thinking at the time was, oh, you know what? We don't really know why, but some people get stretch marks and some people don't.
Right. And, you know, you're just one of the unlucky ones. But years later at the beginning of my nutrition journey, when I was spending a lot of time with my now, um, good friend, uh, Suya, who's, uh, she's a trained physician, conventional, like a physician, but as well as a traditional Chinese medicine doctor.
And it was from her Chinese medicine training, actually, that when I asked her about that, cause she was giving me acupuncture and she said, oh, you had an insufficient diet when you were pregnant. And I was like, um, yeah, did I, but like, how do you know? She said, because you've got stretch marks and I never thought I never put all of that information together before until she said it, but of course, so she explained it to me that, you know, even, you know, even whatever I was eating that probably before pregnancy was still allowing my body to produce enough collagen for me, as soon as I was growing another person, that other person was taking all of those nutrients to produce the tissue to create the baby. So that if I had had an optimal diet when I was pregnant, that maybe would not have happened.

[Kevin]
You would have had enough collagen for both of you, or at least more for you. Yeah.

[Michelle]
And there's lots and lots of women that don't end up with stretch marks. And, and so like, that's an interest. It was just an interesting fact.
So, so some of the ways that, you know, when your body's not producing enough collagen is because it provides this structure and strength to the skin. It's when the skin starts to weaken and recoil. Right.
So those are our wrinkles. Those are, you know, changes in the, in the elasticity of the face. Right.
It can cause tears in the fiber and it can translate to shrinking, weakening muscles, joint aches. You become stiffer, less flexible in the tendons and the ligaments. So a lot of people think that that's, oh, that's just natural aging.
Well, it could be because a certain amount of that decrease in collagen production could just simply be because you're aging. But, but we, we can mitigate against that, right. By, by keeping a healthy diet, joint pain and some, you know, that can contribute to further conditions such as osteoarthritis are due to that wearing of the cartilage, which, you know, cartilage contains collagen.
GI problems due to the thinning of the lining of your digestive tract, because we've got, you know, a type of collagen in there and problems with blood flow even can be linked to collagen production. So these are not, you know, click baity sources that I'm getting this information from. A lot of, a lot of this is from a Cleveland Clinic and, you know, Harvard, et cetera.
So there's a really great article though, if anybody wants to look it up on Food Revolution, let me just get the URL here for so, so people can look it up. It's a foodrevolution.org. And there's a really, really great article in here that kind of summarizes a lot of stuff that I've talked about.
But what I want to pull out of the Food Revolution article just to round this out is about these collagen supplements and products, which is where we started out today. Right. And they, you know, spoiler alert, they conclude the same thing that we do.
That really the best thing that you can do is support the body's own natural production of collagen by making sure that you round out with a balanced diet. If you don't really have confidence in yourself to do that, then sure, then I think it can be reasonable to take some supplementation in a powder or amino acid. But, you know, you have to do that with caution because there are so many marketing claims about what you're going to get that are not backed up with evidence, credible evidence when it comes to these types of products.
And the other thing is when it comes to collagen products, there is like, and supplementation and products that are boosted, you know what I mean? That's what I'm referring to when I say collagen products. There's a lack of large scale randomized control studies on this.

[Kevin]
No, really? I never would have thought that.

[Michelle]
Yeah. So there's no definitive evidence. As we said, there's no definitive evidence if you ingest a powder that it's going to actually make that particular molecule.
There's no definitive evidence that these things are going to have, you know, the ability to absorb, that they're good quality. And they may actually have other fillers, other products, other ingredients in there that are not beneficial. And that can result in side effects or allergies and things like that.

[Kevin]
And I think just one thing that I wanted to point out, which really struck me is, you know, people often take these collagen supplements, I assume, for, you know, aesthetic reasons, for their skin, you know, to look younger, get the elasticity back and blah, blah, blah. But as you were going through the symptoms of having a collagen deficiency, you were listing so many other things besides just the skin. And I would say almost like the elasticity of the skin was one of the lowest priority symptoms because, you know, I want my joints to be healthy.
I want my gastrointestinal lining to be, you know, solid and, you know, not eaten away by the stomach acid or whatever. So it's just funny that you take these supplements for the skin, but the skin is not necessarily even the most important use of the collagen. That's just right.

[Michelle]
It's just the most visible.

[Kevin]
Yes, exactly.

[Michelle]
It's what stares back at us in the mirror. And that's where, yeah. And then, you know, every morning, it's like I've said it before, I'll say it again.
Just don't people don't get your nutrition and wellness advice from TikTok or YouTube or marketers. Never trust a marketer or influencers or Kim Kardashian or anyone.

[Kevin]
No offense to Kim Kardashian, you know, but yeah, you need to look into the science of it and actually figure it. And after all, the best defense is a balanced diet.

[Michelle]
Oh, I thought you were going to say a best defense was an offense.

[Kevin]
Oh, no, it's my new tagline.

[Michelle]
Your best defense is a balanced diet. Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom.

[Kevin]
You need to have Nats lasers.

[Michelle]
I'm feeling another T-shirt coming on, Kim.

[Kevin]
Oh, oh, oh, oh, that could be, could be. You never know.

[Michelle]
I wish the people could see the video now. I'm doing a little dance.

[Kevin]
It's the new T-shirt dance available soon in our swag shop. We don't even have a swag shop. We have to get a swag shop.

[Michelle]
We are.

[Kevin]
Because we have, we're just, you know, we have the dinosaur T-shirt now. Now we're going to have like the best defense is a balanced diet.

[Michelle]
Love that shirt.

[Kevin]
I knew you would. I knew you would. And if people don't know what we're talking about, check out our Facebook page because you'll see, you'll see the unboxing video of Michelle getting this T-shirt.

[Michelle]
It was so fun.

[Kevin]
We've got to do some more of those.

[Michelle]
Yeah, exactly.

[Kevin]
Well, I'm sure there'll be a, you know, another T-shirt in the works eventually.

[Michelle]
So speaking of fun.

[Kevin]
Yes.

[Michelle]
Have you got a joke for us today? Or did you by any chance, did you see the jokes that I sent you that my friend's daughter told her?

[Kevin]
I did. I did. But I'm going with another one today.

[Michelle]
Okay. Sorry, Sheila.

[Kevin]
Yeah, that's okay. That's okay. This was told to me by one of my son's friends.
So, you know, I have to, I have to keep it in the family. You know, it's the priority.

[Michelle]
No, that's not fair, but okay. Go ahead.

[Kevin]
Next time. Next time. I promise.
I promise. Okay. So there were two snowmen side by side.
One looks around sniffing and says, I smell carrots. Do you? Yeah, it's, it's, you know, that level of humor.
Again, it's all about humor.

[Michelle]
This goes right back to the butts you were talking about earlier.

[Kevin]
Yes, exactly. All of the butts. This was a butt filled episode.

[Michelle]
You gotta love kids.

[Kevin]
Exactly. Well, you know, you gotta love them or hate them. I don't know.

[Michelle]
Yeah.

[Kevin]
Depends on the day. Okay. Well, thank you.
This was, this was super amazing. And thank you to the listener who called in with this question or emailed in with this question. We're not a radio show.

[Michelle]
Yeah. It was email. Yeah.
Yeah. Don't, don't waste your money. People just, just eat real food.

[Kevin]
Yes, exactly. Because the best defense after all is a balanced diet. Okay.
So without further ado, if you have any questions, I'll repeat myself from the beginning again. You can reach us at n the letter for noobs at gmail.com, or you can connect with us on Facebook or do both. And until then you should.

[Michelle]
Wait a minute. Oh. And please like the episodes and share them and leave a review and help us with the algorithms.

[Kevin]
Yes. Because leaving a review, especially a review on Apple podcasts really helps other people find this. So please.
Yes. Thank you.

[Michelle]
And leave the reviews on the content, not on the dad jokes.

[Kevin]
Yeah. Well, I don't know, unless you really like the dad jokes, then, you know, feel free to. Just for the dad jokes.

[Michelle]
I'm just teasing you. People actually really do love the dad jokes. I've been told by people that they just, they just laugh when they're driving down the road on their way to work.

[Kevin]
Wow. We got to get some better audience. We got to improve our audience, the class of our audience, obviously.
Okay. So until then, thank you, Michelle. And don't forget everyone.
Eat your greens.

[Michelle]
And be real.

[Kevin]
And the best defense is a balanced diet.

[Michelle]
Oh my God.

[Kevin]
How many times did I say that? Like 500 times?

[Michelle]
I don't know. It should be a drinking game at this point.

[Kevin]
No, but we're not drinking alcohol. That's, it'll have to be a beet juice drinking game. This has been Nutrition for Noobs.
We hope you're a bit more enlightened about how your fantastic and complicated body works with the food you put into it. If you have a question or a topic you'd like Michelle to discuss, drop us a line at n4noobs at gmail.com. That's the letter N, the number 4, N-O-O-B-S at gmail.com.
If you haven't already, you can subscribe to the podcast on whatever your favourite platform might be. Also, please consider leaving a review or telling your friends. That's the best way to spread the word.
We'll see you next time with another interesting topic. The views and opinions expressed on Nutrition for Noobs are those of the hosts. It is not intended to be a substitute for medical, nutritional, or health advice.
Listeners should seek a personal consultation with a qualified practitioner if they have any concerns or before commencing any actions mentioned in the podcast.