Marie-France is passionate about natural health products to maintain optimum health and vitality. A professionally trained Naturopath, she is also a sales representative at Land Art since 2015.
A few years ago, when I was a Naturopath counselor at a natural food store, we were only rarely questioned about collagen. Very few companies were distributing them, and buyers were relatively rare. In 2019, if you've never heard of this miracle product, it's that you’ve probably been living under a rock!
ALL companies go with their best version of collagen supplement, whether it is to maintain your joints or to firm your pretty face. Obviously, when something becomes a fad, it is important to know how to differentiate the good from the mediocre. Since all companies are struggling to get their fair share of the market, you will at least be well informed.
The first thing to know is that collagen is an animal product. Some companies will try to convince you that their collagen is vegan. This quite simply doesn't exist. Plants do not produce collagen. Let me be frank: plants do wonders in many respects, but they certainly don’t make collagen. By reading the list of ingredients, you can quickly realize that the formulation does not include collagen at all. It is simply a combination of plants or essential fatty acids that may be beneficial for joint health but does not contain the slightest trace of collagen. In my opinion, these companies practice opportunistic marketing by taking advantage of the current popularity of collagen.
If you are looking for a vegan formulation to support the production of your own collagen, silica is possibly the key ingredient to look for in the composition of a natural product. From mineral or vegetable sources, silica offers several advantages, including that of being a precursor of intrinsic collagen. It is good to know that silica, often sold as a cosmetic product for the health and vitality of skin, will find its way to your joints and tendons, and be just as effective in the long run as collagen. You should also know that since we are ourselves constituted of animal collagen, our body will quickly recognize the assortment of amino acids contained in animal collagen; you will notice results faster than consuming a precursor of the latter.
How to decide which product to choose among all the collagens available on the market? Here are some criteria that you should consider when researching. First, collagen is a huge protein. You may already consume it regularly when you cook. In this form, your body assimilates very little of the collagen naturally present in meat, stocks or gelatin. In fact, to benefit from the effects of collagen in your joints or on the solidity of your nails, you should consume a hydrolyzed collagen. This term simply means that the enormous protein that is collagen has been reduced to its simplest form: amino acids, which, at the molecular level, are much smaller and easier to assimilate where needed. If you consume collagen in the form of amino acids, the provenance of the latter becomes less important. Rather, it becomes important to check the hydrolysis methods used by the companies and their choice of raw materials used in the production of their joint health supplement containing collagen.
Land art offers two products containing collagen, including Collag-N Extra, a complete formula for painful joints including Glucosamine, MSM, chondroitin, wintergreen and Devil's claw. The collagen used by Land Art is of bovine origin. Hydrolyzation is done enzymatically, which is an advantage over popular methods of hydrolysis which use dangerous chemicals. The final product, Collag-N by Land Art, contains collagen only and offers nothing but benefits.
For vegans, we offer two types of Land Art silica as well as a potent anti-inflammatory with turmeric to eliminate once and for all the pain related to joints and articulations. Combined with silica, our Herbaflex anti-inflammatory product provides a similar effect to Collag-N Extra, but without the animal proteins.
So here you are, more knowledgeable about this whole collagen fad. And since you will quickly feel the effects, you can rest assured that this trend is here to stay!