If you’re using Broth Masters for skin support, it’s probably for the collagen, right?
Well, what if we told you that another ingredient we put into the pot packs just as much of a beauty punch?
And what if that ingredient turned out to be lots and lots of carrots?
It’s true, and we’re going to show you exactly what we mean!
Why do carrots benefit your skin?
Because your body converts beta carotene into Vitamin A retinol, slowing the breakdown of collagen.
We cook with carrots to get as much beta carotene into our broth as possible.
Beta carotene is the pigment that’s responsible for giving carrots their brilliant orange glow.
However, when consumed by humans, beta carotene does something miraculous inside the body: it gets converted to Vitamin A retinol.
You might have heard of retinol, because it’s often put into expensive topical creams to reduce fine lines and wrinkles.
As Harvard Medical School writes, “Retinoids reduce fine lines and wrinkles by increasing the production of collagen. They also stimulate the production of new blood vessels in the skin, which improves skin color. Additional benefits include fading age spots and softening rough patches of skin.”
When your body converts beta carotene to retinol, those same retinoids that people rub onto their skin get infused straight into your cells!
And in case you’re wondering: yes, it still works when you’re ingesting it rather than applying it topically.
In 2010, a study in the journal Dermatology found that 30mg / day of oral beta carotene was “demonstrated to prevent and repair photoaging”, which is when the sun prematurely ages the skin.
Now, here’s why we think it’s more beneficial to get beta carotene from Broth Masters than anywhere else.
If you just ate raw carrots, the beta carotene you absorbed would be limited. It’s actually better to cook them. Raw carrots give you just 10% to 30% of Beta Carotene according to the National Institutes of Health. The NIH adds, though, that “cooking and heat treatment can increase the bioavailability of beta-carotene from foods.”
Which is exactly what we do, adding the carrots in at specific temperatures to coax the beta carotene out.
Of course, in addition to beta carotene helping to increase your body’s own production of collagen, you’re also getting lots of collagen from the broth.
Add it all up, and a mug of Broth Masters does serious good for the health and appearance of your skin.
However, beauty isn’t the only benefit of all the carrots that we put into each pot.
Juice extracted from carrots actively kills leukemia cells.
“The findings suggest that carrots may be an excellent source of bioactive chemicals for the treatment of leukemia.”
That was the stunning conclusion of a study published in the Journal of Medicinal Food in 2011.
For this study, researchers treated leukemia cell lines with carrot juice extracts for up to 72 hours. The cells were then stained with a dye that would reveal whether apoptosis (death of the cancer cells) was taking place or not.
Result: “Treatment of leukemia cell lines with carrot juice extract induced apoptosis and inhibited progression through the cell cycle.”
Cancerous lymphoid cells were most affected by the carrot juice, followed by myeloid cells.
Summarizing their findings, the researchers wrote: “This study has shown that extracts from carrots can induce apoptosis and cause cell cycle arrest in leukemia cell lines.”
And if you’re wondering what other potent healing effects carrots might have, consider this.
“β-Carotene Produces Sustained Remissions in Patients With Oral Leukoplakia”
A study published in Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery in 1999 found this to be true.
Oral leukoplakia, if you didn’t know, is a type of precancerous lesion in the mouth.
Researchers gathered fifty subjects with these lesions to participate in the study, all of whom were given 60 mg / day of beta carotene for six months.
At the six month mark, the participants were split into groups, with half continuing to receive the beta carotene for twelve more months and the other half being switched to a placebo.
By the end of those twelve months, nine of the participants taking beta carotene saw “improvement of at least one grade of dysplasia.”
What’s more, those participants were monitored after they stopped taking the beta carotene and the improvements were still present a full year after that.
We feel that science is just now beginning to uncover the total healing power of carrots.
This humble vegetable has a lot to offer to anyone seeking to look and feel their best.
That’s why we put lots of them into Broth Masters (plus the taste, of course!)
Warmly,
-Dorothy & Laya