Eat What the Pig Ate

By Atom Bergstrom

Atom’s Blog

Re: I can’t bring myself to eat ham hocks and pig’s ears for connective tissue restoration/repair of skin/tissue/joint issues, so what would your food choices be to get similar benefits/results?

Pig’s ears and ham hocks are suitable for folks desiring strong supportive tissue for the ears and ankles …

eating the ears in the morning and the hocks in the evening.

It’s called Geometric Body Resonance (Doctrine of Signatures) and Getting Your Shift Together by Growth Period.

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However, vegetarians can have strong ears and ankles too.

Someone eating low on the food chain can eat what the pig ate, and eliminate the “middle man.”

You are what you eat …

and you are what you eat ate …

and you are what you eat ate ate …

and so on down the line.

Fruit and vegetables contain glycine, alanine, proline, and hydroxyproline too.

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Commercially-raised pigs have the highest level of collagen because they’re fed soy and corn, both high in glycine, etc.

But are commercially-raised pigs your highest choice?

Ray Peat (“Gelatin, stress, longevity, 2009) wrote …

“Most studies of the nutritional requirements for protein have been done for the agricultural industries, and so have been designed to find the cheapest way to get the maximum growth in the shortest time. The industry isn’t interested in the longevity, intelligence, or happiness of their pigs, chickens, and lambs. The industry has used chemical growth stimulants in combination with the foods that support rapid growth at least expense. Antibiotics and arsenic and polyunsaturated fatty acids have become part of our national food supply because they produce rapid weight gain in young animals.”

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Q. What does a white rhinoceros eat to supply all the collagen for its armor?

A. Grass and leaves.

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R.E. Shadwick, A.P. Russell, & R.F. Lauff (“The structure and mechanical design of rhinoceros dermal armour,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Series B, Biological Sciences, Sept. 29, 1992) wrote …

“The collagenous dermis of the white rhinoceros forms a thick, protective armour that is highly specialized in its structure and material properties compared with other mammalian skin. Rhinoceros skin is three times thicker than predicted allometrically, and it contains a dense and highly ordered three-dimensional array of relatively straight and highly crosslinked collagen fibres.”

According to the same source …

“As a biological material, rhinoceros dorsolateral skin has properties that are intermediate between those of ‘normal’ mammalian skin and tendons. This study shows that the dermal armour of the rhinoceros is very well adapted to resist blows from the horns of conspecifics, as might occur during aggressive behavior, due to specialized material properties as well as its great thickness.”

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Here’s a crucial footnote. Once the collagen is in your body, how do you keep it from fibrosing?

Eat as little as possible of anything that contributes to Waxy Yellow Fat Disease (cumulative autofluorescent lipofuscinosis).
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