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Comment by throw1234651234 | Hacker News Reader

Yes - cartilage. If you eat chicken or something like that, eat the cartilage. You can do this on pre-cooked chickens you get from Sam's Club / Costco. If you eat chicken breasts only (which a lot of health-conscious people do), you don't get this benefit.

I talked to Dr.Yang Jwing Ming (one of the few Kung Fu practioners with a Western phd and he said eating cartilage is one of the best ways to help reduce the risk of arthritis. Oh, and pig ears too, but I never tried that, being a Westerner and all.

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Westerners have eaten pig ears for centuries.

I would be surprised if I've met anyone in the US who has eaten pig ear nor the chicken feet you see next to them in the hispanic market. And just about everyone would react to the ick factor.

I don't think it's as common as you think: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pig%27s_ear_(food).

I don't really know of anyone who eats pig ears but chicken feet aren't that weird for the American South.

It's not super-common but it's nothing out of the ordinary either. Many restaurants in Southern Europe, including France, serve dishes such as pig feet, pig snout or pig head.

Also explains how 'Westerners' have been living so long for centuries, especially before the 1960s.

I read research that to reap benefits of these sources ( collagen, etc) your stomach acid needs to be strong enough to break it down- old people have weaker stomach acid so they get wrinkles easier- Supplement apple cider vinegar, lemon juice etc or other fermented foods raises stomach acid strength and raises blood Alkalinity, or so I heard

Another great way to get cartilage is with chicken soup, slow cooked until the gristle liquefies in to the soup. It's more absorbable by the body that way. Chicken fat is great for the skin, too. Easy and cheap to cook - just get a whole hen and simmer it in water in a big pot, or use a crock pot.

Would chicken bone broth have it?

No, it's a myth:

https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/02/10/384948585/ta...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5533136/

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2015/11/truth-about-...

None of those mention Glucosamine. And they seem to be sour grapes articles, not sure why. One of the “myths” they dispel is “bone broth tastes good”.

It does raise some good thoughts on why it’s not a super food.

Quite probably. I am assuming that home-made methods are similar as industrial scale methods (put a bunch of chicken bones and connective tissue in a vat of water, simmer, strain).

Collagen has it too?

Pig ears are absolutely delicious

I really hope at some point in our lifetimes, the deleterious effects of animal protein are pervasively understood by educated Americans to the point where consuming animal parts for their anti-inflammatory benefits would be an oxymoron on par with smoking to prevent cancer. An overwhelming body of scientific evidence suggests that humans are omnivores and not carnivores and the human body evolved to process animal protein on an occasional basis(like alcohol) and not because it’s good for us on a daily basis.

1. Glucosamine is not a protein. 2. The claimed benefit of glucosamine is not anti-inflammation, but providing the building blocks for cartilage repair as synovial fluid is circulated in the joint. 3. It's very difficult to get sufficient protein from a plant based diet, especially when avoiding soy, which raises estrogen.

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