Sharing some of my favorite collagen boosting superfoods!

Hi friends! How’s the day going? I hope you’re having an amazing morning! The kids are at a fun camp and I have back-to-back podcast interviews and client calls. I’m hoping I can sneak away for a yoga class tonight!

For today’s post, I wanted to chat about collagen.

Collagen is a vital protein in our bodies, playing a crucial role in maintaining the health and elasticity of our skin, hair, nails, and joints. It’s the main component of connective tissues and helps keep our skin looking youthful and radiant. However, as we age, our body’s ability to produce collagen naturally declines, leading to wrinkles, sagging skin, and weaker joints.

While there are plenty of skincare products that contain collagen, eating collagen-boosting foods can help the body make its own collagen more effectively. Not all collagen supplements are the same, and incorporating natural sources into your diet can provide a more holistic approach to collagen production. Today, I wanted to share a roundup of collagen-boosting superfoods that you can add to your diet.

(dress is from Amazon here!)

5 Collagen Boosting Superfoods

1. Bone Broth

Bone broth is one of the most potent sources of collagen. Made by simmering animal bones and connective tissue, bone broth contains a rich supply of collagen, gelatin, and essential amino acids that support joint and skin health. Drinking a cup of bone broth daily can help strengthen your body’s natural collagen production. Besides boosting collagen, bone broth also supports gut health, reduces inflammation, and improves joint function.

2. Citrus Fruits

Citrus fruits like oranges, lemons, and grapefruits are high in vitamin C, a crucial nutrient for collagen synthesis. Vitamin C acts as an antioxidant, protecting the skin from damage and helping to repair tissues. Consuming one to two servings of citrus fruits daily can enhance your body’s ability to produce collagen. Additionally, these fruits are hydrating, low in calories, and great for overall immune support.

3. Leafy Greens

Leafy greens such as spinach, kale, and Swiss chard are packed with vitamins A and C, which are essential for collagen production. They also contain chlorophyll, which has been shown to increase the precursor to collagen in the skin. Incorporating at least one serving of leafy greens into your daily diet can help you achieve healthier hair, skin, and nails and let your natural radiance shine. Moreover, leafy greens are rich in fiber, aiding digestion and promoting a healthy gut. Shredded cabbage is another one of my faves.

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With an abundance of sweet ripe berries, fresh green spinach, chewy pasta, and a bright and flavorful light balsamic dressing, this strawberry spinach salad is an unexpected and delicious pasta salad that is certain to become one of your family’s new favorites.

Strawberry Spinach Salad

This is not your average spinach pasta salad. With strawberry season on its way (and blueberry season not far behind), this strawberry and spinach salad should be on your radar as you plan your summer meals. It is the perfect light lunch or side dish for a summertime dinner.

In the abundance of pasta salad recipes, there’s something especially irresistible about the sweet bite of berries in this particular dish. I often use a combination of strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries for a uniquely delicious combination of flavors and textures.

A sprinkle of goat cheese adds a salty, savory tang that ties all the flavors in this salad together. I’ve used both honey goat cheese and regular goat cheese in this recipe and they were both delicious.

Strawberries are the ultimate sweet bite in many of our favorite recipes. I’m always amazed by how much flavor strawberries add to a simple salad. As it turns out, pasta salad is no exception!

While I often use a combination of blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries in this particular strawberry spinach pasta salad, if you don’t have all those types of berries you can easily substitute with all of one kind of berry.

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5 Minute Avocado Salad

This avocado salad is bright and fresh and only takes 5 short minutes to make! Creamy avocados topped with a simple tangy dressing, toasted pine nuts and chunks of manchego cheese. It’s just a lovely salad!

Avocado is one of my love languages. They are pretty much the best little fruit ever. I mean, how many foods out there can you eat for any and every meal? They are healthy and satisfying. They are beautiful and so creamy. Throw them on some toast, mash them into guacamole, add them to a taco, wrap them with bacon, blend them into a dressing, or in this case, make them the base of a salad. Winning, winning, winning!

Ingredients for Avocado Salad

I love coming up with new salad recipes and this one is a little out of the box (i.e. I didn’t find another salad quite like it out there on the interwebs) but it seriously just works! All you need is a few avocados, a couple of simple ingredients for a zesty dressing and a few fun add-ins that just make dish come alive! Here is what you will need:

• Avocados: you’ll want ripe hass avocados, see my section below on how to pick ripe avocados
• Lime Juice: fresh is best, like by far the best
• White Wine Vinegar: combined with the lime juice, this is just the acid you want to balance out of the creamy richness of the avos
• Manchego Cheese: a semi-hard Spanish cheese made from sheep’s milk that is buttery in texture and similar in flavor to pecorino romano
• Pine Nuts: toasting the pine nuts gives them a little crunch and enhances their flavor
• Salt: adds and enhances flavors
• Cilantro: adds a fresh herby pop of flavor and is my favorite herb to pair with avocados

The measurements for each ingredient can be found in the recipe card at the end of this post.

Possible Substitutions:

Ok, I realize that some of these might not be common ingredients to have on hand, so here are some possible substitutes, but I highly recommend hitting the grocery store and trying the original recipe.

Avocados – no substitutes here because nothing can replace the heaven of an avocado

Lime Juice – you could try lemon juice, but lime and avocado just belong together

White Wine Vinegar – try red wine vinegar or rice vinegar (not seasoned)

Manchego – pecorino romano, asiago or monterey jack are ok substitutes

Pine Nuts – pistachios, toasted almonds or chopped cashews

How to Pick a Ripe Avocado

There are few things better than a perfectly ripe avocado and there are few things worse than an over- or underripe avocado! To pick a r

This post is about what I learned at the Biohacking Conference, hosted by Dave Asprey, in Dallas, TX. I’m grateful that a media pass was provided to attend this amazing experience. You can read my first review about the Biohacking Conference here.

(and yes, this includes things you can do at home!)

Hi friends! How is the weekend going? We’re in full dance recital mode over here. Don’t forget to head over to this week’s giveaway!

Today, I wanted to share a recap of some of the top things I learned from the Biohacking Conference. As you can imagine, I learned a LOT, and felt like my brain was buzzing for days afterwards. I’ve finally had a chance to let everything simmer, and time to sort through the 19 pages of notes. Of course, I can’t share EVERYTHING here on the blog – you need to go in person!! – but here are some of my favorite points from some of the talks I attended while I was there. (I could post so much more but like I said, you really have to go in person!)

Courtesy of the 10th Annual Biohacking Conference

What I learned at Dave Asprey’s Biohacking Conference

The End of Mental Illness with Dr. Daniel Amen

I’ve been a huge fan of Dr. Amen for years and years, so I was thrilled for the opportunity to learn from him in person. During his talk, he shared that psychiatry is the only medical industry that doesn’t actually look at the organ itself before prescribing medication. If you have heart issues, they take an image. If you have kidney pain, they take an image. With your brain, they take an educated guess, and prescribe medication without actually looking at your brain.

At his clinic, they perform SPECT scans that enable providers to look at the surface of the brain, blood flow, and brain activitity. It’s pretty fascinating – they have a new clinic in Scottsdale! – and it was incredible to see images of brains that were healed after trauma, drug use, OCD, etc. through lifestyle, supplements, and medication, if it was actually needed.

The main message of his talk was that you can heal your brain, and you’re not stuck with the brain you currently have.

Factors that HURT your brain:

– Altered blood flow, through things like high blood pressure, caffeine, sedentary lives, low choresterol, nicotine, caffeine

– Head trauma

– Retirement/aging – no longer having a purpose, or suffering from lonliness

– Toxicity – alcohol, mold, heavy metals, THC, drugs, products

– What he refers to as “diabesity”: high blood sugar, pre-diabetes, diabetes, being overweight or obese

– Inflammation- from proces

Our Favorite Campfire Dessert – Banana Boats

Banana boats are a campfire recipe from my childhood! Warm fire-roasted bananas topped with marshmallows and chocolate chips with the whole family sitting around the campfire laughing and making memories. It just doesn’t get much better than that!

Discover the simple steps to creating delicious and decadent campfire banana boats, filled with your choice of toppings. We are sharing photos of all our favorite creations to inspire your minds and tastebuds. We can’t wait for you to enjoy this tasty summer dessert!

Saved By Banana Boats

Childhood is really hard.

It’s wonderful for sure and if you’re like me you have a little inner ache to climb your way back to it. But there’s a lot of growing pains, literally and figuratively to endure. Thankfully we had our camping trips and lake visits that smoothed out any roughness of life.

And banana boats.

We had many banana boats.

Who thought up such a magical creation and let children’s hearts fly free with the unwrapping of a simple piece of aluminum foil and charred banana?

Growing up we only did chocolate chips and marshmallows, but all these years later we’ve got a plethora of talented kids to lead us to new adventures, even with this classic camping dessert.

What is a Banana Boat?

A banana boat is like a s’more and a banana split fell in love and had a baby. It takes a few things from each parent and is perfect! Banana boats consist of bananas sliced down the middle, stuffed with yummy toppings like marshmallows, chocolate chips, nuts, m&m’s, caramel, etc. and then wrapped in foil and cooked over the campfire. It is a favorite campfire recipe of ours!

What is the Difference Between Banana Boat and a Banana Split?

A banana boat does not have any ice cream in it and is cooked over campfire or on a grill. It does have many of the same flavors and joy that a banana split brings though! In fact, we even made a banana split inspired banana boat for this photo shoot which can be seen below. Banana boats are a fun alternative for a campfire dessert rather than s’mores.

Ingredients for Banana Boats

The ingredients list for banana boats are simple…bananas and whatever toppings you want to put on them. I will share a section below for all the toppings we’ve tried. You can really let your imagination and taste buds run wild on this one!

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