JUST TO SHARE (Lau Tai Onn): You Like to Eat Pig's Trotters?

Received the following forwarded email from the Blogger's e-buddy the other day:

Hurray for 'G Keok Cho' or Pig's Trotter in Vinegar!!

THEY ARE RICH IN COLLAGEN!

For the Chinese, trotters are a delicacy.

As Britain 's spending on cosmetic surgery soars, Fiona MacDonald Smith suggests it's time that we chopped and changed our diet instead. The latest anti-ageing food? Pigs' trotters. That's right, you heard it here first.

In New York, the most talked-about new opening of the past couple of months has been a Japanese restaurant called Hakata Tonton, where 33 out of the 39 dishes contain pigs' feet.

The reason for this, according to its owner, Himi Okajima, is that they are rich in collagen, the protein responsible for skin and muscle tone, more recognizable to beauty addicts in the form of face creams and fillers.

"Collagen helps your body retain moisture," says Okajima, who has introduced a chain of restaurants specializing in collagen cuisine in Japan . "Your hair and skin will look better, but it's not just for looking beautiful now. If you begin eating collagen in your thirties, you will look younger in your forties."

Maybe this sounds a little improbable ("It's news to me," sniffs Lisa Miles of the British Nutrition Foundation. "I've certainly never heard of eating collagen.") but Okajima believes he is on to something.

Figures published last month show that British spending on cosmetic surgery is the highest in Europe, hitting nearly £500 million in 2006, four times more than in 2001. Isn't there a cheaper solution? Couldn't eating the right foods, in the right way, be a simpler, and ultimately more long-term way to stay looking and feeling younger? "You are what you eat," says nutritional therapist Ian Marber, aka The Food Doctor.

"You can't turn the clock back but you can slow things down. Every cell replicates from RNA and DNA. In order to keep the DNA in good condition, you want to protect cells from harmful free radicals. And for this you need to eat fruit and vegetables, which contain vital anti-oxidants like vitamins A, C, E and zinc. "It doesn't have to be expensive," he adds. "I know people go on about so-called 'superfoods' which have a greater concentration of anti-oxidants, but two apples a day will give you plenty of vitamins and fibre. You just need to ensure a varied diet."

"The key is to remember we're omnivorous," agrees nutritionist Christian Lee, who is the national trainer for the Dr Nicholas Perricone cosmetics and nutrition empire. "Have you ever noticed how women age more rapidly than men? That's because they don't eat enough protein. The days you don't eat protein are the days you age. The body can't store protein, but it needs it for cellular production and function.

"At each meal you should be able to hold up three fingers and say 'I've got a good source of protein (lean fish or poultry, nuts, seeds or tofu); an essential fatty acid (Omega 3 or 6, so that's coldwater oily fish, flaxseeds, linseeds ) and a low glycaemic carbohydrate (fruit, vegetables, and whole grains like quinoa, buckwheat and oatmeal)'.. If you can say that, you're on the right road."

Perricone, a dermatologist, became America's most famous anti-ageing specialist with his "Three-Day Nutritional Face Lift", which extolled the virtues of eating wild Alaskan salmon twice a day, claiming its essential fatty acids would banish puffiness and tighten the skin. Uma Thurman, Heidi Klum and J-Lo are all fans.

In his new book Ageless Face, Ageless Mind, which has yet to reach the UK, Dr Perricone's team assert that up to 40 per cent of wrinkles are caused by dietary sugar.

"When you eat high glycaemic carbohydrates like bread, cakes and pasta, they turn into sugar in the blood so fast that the pancreas can't respond with enough insulin and the blood becomes saturated with sugar," argues Christian Lee. "The sugar needs to go somewhere so it attaches itself to the cell membranes.

When it does this to collagen molecules in the skin, it causes the collagen to become stiff and immobile and that's the birth of the wrinkle. The bad news is that it doesn't end there - the sugar then pumps out free radicals, causing a double whammy of damage.

The good news is you can prevent it - either by cutting out sugar or by taking a supplement of alpha lipoid acid, which is 400 times stronger than vitamin C and E combined." So ditch the sugar, but don't forget the pigs' trotters.

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After observing from the sideline some sparrings among the e-buddies namely Jo, Mag, Perry, SK, Dave and others, the "Great Sifu" Dr JB Lim finally strikes:

Sent: Saturday, July 24, 2010 3:50 PM

Dear all,

Thank you for all the guesses among yourself. I have been very patient reading all your arguments. Let me now speak.

Collagen and gelatin:

Collagen is found only in animals, and they are found in the flesh and connective tissues of mainly mammals. It is in fact the main component of connective tissues, and about 25% to 35% of the whole-body protein is actually collagen. Collagen, in the shape of elongated fibrils, is mainly found in fibrous tissues such as tendon, ligament and skin, and is also abundant in cornea, cartilage, bone, blood vessels, the gut, and intervertebral disc.

In muscle tissue it serves as a major component of endomysium (sheaths of a muscle fiber). Collagen constitutes 1 – 2 % of muscle tissue, and accounts for 6% of the weight of strong, tendinous muscles. Gelatin used in the food industry is derived from collagen by hydrolysis.

Worse protein with zero BV:

Gelatin and collagen by themselves are the worse form of protein known in nutrition. They have a biological value of zero. Biological value is a measure nutritionists use to measure the quality of a protein. The best proteins are from whole eggs, and milk with a BV score of 100, while collagen and gelatin are the lowest form with a BV of zero or almost zero because when ingested the valuable nitrogen in it cannot be retained and utilized by the body.

Zero nutritional and medicinal value:

In simple words, collagen and gelatin when taken in will absolutely have no nutritional value at all. The nitrogen in protein of collagen and gelatin cannot be retained by the body, and this is completely thrown out by the body. But their nutritional values can be enhanced by complementing with other proteins. I remember being taught that as a postgraduate student at the University of London, and later at Cambridge.

Gelatin is produced by partial hydrolysis of collagen extracted from the boiled bones, connective tissues, organs and some intestines of animals such as cows, pigs, and horses. This is the small gelatin of zero nutritional value found in essence of chicken which is nothing but just gelatin. Gelatin even as a ‘food’ is colourless, tasteless, and favorless. It is used in the food industry as a jelly, and in medicine as capsules for encapsulating drugs.

Complementary protein rich in lysine:

As a protein, collagen and gelatin is deficient in an important amino-acid called tryptophan, which is one of the nine essential amino acids. Because this tryptophan is absent, it makes collagen and gelatin completely useless to the body. However, gelatin is seldom consumed in isolation or as a sole source of protein in the diet, so in a mixed diet gelatin has the advantage of meat products as it is high in another essential amino acid called lysine. Thus, it can be considered a valuable compliment to any largely vegetable diet. Also, it has been shown to enhance the protein nutritional value of bread.

Thus this chain e-mail received by me advocating the health benefits of eating foods rich in collagen for the joints, skin and hair is a total bunkum. Collagen can easily be formed for the formation of the connective tissues, skin and hair by the consumption of any other protein-rich foods containing much more complete amino-acids.

No clue and knowledge:

Moreover whoever person who wrote that claim has neither clue on nutrition, biochemistry, food chemistry, or physiology. He or she does not even understand that whatever proteins a person eats, it all first has to go to the digestive tract where all the proteins and collagen must be broken down into amino acids first before they can be absorbed and then synthesized back into protein. The collagen cannot just get absorbed just like that, and go straight to form the skin, hair, cartilage, and connective just like that? That bunkum must have no clue on how food is digested and later nourish the body. How can collagen simply just go straight into the body directly to strengthen the skin, hair, and make then ‘strong and beautiful’? It is not even wanted by the body. It just instantly get thrown out after absorption.

Only saloon beauticians claim that:

That claim must have come from one of those unqualified bunkum direct selling people selling beauty aids, cosmetics, and beauty parlour people. I am sorry to use such sarcastic remarks on them. Who else can this sort of ‘nutrition advice’ come from? Only sales people selling cosmetic write such rubbish and send them out as chain e-mails to advertise, to sell their products. Definitely this did not come from a qualified nutritionist.

A lot of these ‘information’ and unsolicited and unqualified claim found in the Internet and chain e-mails are from unqualified people. A lot of people have been sending me tons of ‘nutritional and health’ ‘advice’ by the thousands, claiming this and that as good for health? They send them to the wrong person.

The practice of nutrition to be made a profession by law:

This is to inform you all that the practice of nutrition is soon going to be regulated legally as a profession alike to the practice of dietetics, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, nursing, optometry, and other health professions. A law is going to be passed by Parliament by the end of this year or early next year to prohibit any person to practice nutrition or give nutrition advice to any person without an Annual Practicing License.

This is going to be made a law in a few months time when the practice of nutrition legally becomes a health profession by the Act of Parliament. This has already been in practice in many other countries, but we are very slow in legalizing it. I heard the final draft Bill has already been submitted by the Cabinet to Parliament for final reading before the Bill be passed as an Act.

Practicing License needed:

This means that no person can practice nutrition, or give advice on nutrition to any person without a recognized and registrable degree. This applies to all direct selling people in the food, drug, or health industry. They cannot employ any unqualified person to work or act as a nutritionist unless he or she has a recognized university degree in nutrition which must be registrable with the Ministry of Health or the Nutrition Council.

That should effectively stop all the ‘nutrition advice’ all sorts of people have been sending me through e-mails even though I did not solicit their ‘professional advice’ on their ‘nutrition and health’.

See these websites below:
http://www.nutriweb.org.my/downloads/nsm-ahpapproaches.pdf
http://www .nutriweb.org.my/