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From our family to yours...
We are a 100%-owned family farm, so you can rest assured that everything that bears our name is produced on our farm with the greatest attention to every detail.
You see, we truly care about the health of our family, and we care about yours too.
Our mission is to provide families with truly healthy meat.
Farm Blog
Posted by: Trevor
April 5, 2025
You likely have heard about hyaluronic acid as a skin rejuvenator --- a way to improve skin tone and reduce wrinkles, in the form of topically applied lotions. And while it may be an effective cosmetic, that's not what I'm talking about in this article. Rather, I am referring to hyaluronic acid as an orally-administered prebiotic that can dramatically improve the health of our microbiome.
Hyaluronic Acid from Organic Ligaments, Skin, and Bones
A prebiotic? Yes. While all other prebiotics you've heard of are plant-based, hyaluronic acid is found most abundantly in animal products: specifically skin, joints, connective tissues and organs. Think chicken skin, various organs such as intestines and heart, beef joints and ligaments, and pork bones, as examples.
But I should give you some background first. Our bodies are capable of manufacturing hyaluronic acid on their own. It is not essential for us to get hyaluronic acid through diet. Beneficial enzymes in our bodies can manufacture it quite readily. Our bodies then use it to hydrate our tissues --- making our skin more resilient, lubricating our joints, keeping our eyes healthy, and aiding in the proper functioning of our organs.
So, if we can manufacture our own hyaluronic acid, why bother consuming it in our diet?
First, as we age, we lose our ability to produce hyaluronic acid efficiently. Second, if we are suffering from any chronic ailment, this also hinders production.
But the good news is this: studies have shown that oral-ingestion of hyaluronic acid can reduce skin dryness, reduce wrinkles, improve skin elasticity, and reduce the appearance of ageing (Kawada, Yoshida, et al. Ingested hyaluronan moisturizes dry skin. Nutrition Journal. 2014).
It can also increase synovial fluid in our joints, and improve overall joint health (Oe, Tashiro, et al. Oral hyaluronan relieves knee pain: a review. Nutrition Journal. 2016).
For those reasons alone, hyaluronic acid supplementation has become very popular --- but mostly in the form of industrially-produced powders. But thankfully, there is a much better, natural and holistically-beneficial way to obtain hyaluronic acid in our diet, which I will describe later.
But before we get to that, let’s talk about orally-ingested hyaluronic acid as a powerful prebiotic.
Prebiotics are typically non-digestible polysaccharides, fibers, and plant foods, which promote the growth of beneficial bacteria in our microbiome. Think of them as special foods that only microbes can eat. Prebiotics are not typically broken down when we eat them, rather they travel intact to the lower part of our digestive tracts, where they are utilized by microbes in our gut which use them to carry out essential functions such as the production of various nutrients including short-chain fatty acids, K and B vitamins (Nysten and van Dijck. Can we microbe-manage our vitamin acquisition for better health? PLOS Pathogens. 2023), and even the production of hormones.
In this way, our microbiome acts as a virtual endocrine organ (Clarke, Stilling et al. Minireview: Gut Microbiota: The Neglected Endocrine Organ. Molecular Endocrinology. 2014).
Amazingly, a large portion of the vitamins, nutrients and hormones our bodies rely on to function optimally are directly or indirectly produced by the beneficial microbes in our gut (Bermudez-Humaran, Chassaing & Langella. Exploring the interaction and impact of probiotic and commensal bacteria... Microbial Cell Factories. 2024).
In fact, our gut is home to hundreds of distinct species of microbes. Some of the microbes are helpful, others are harmful. Ideally the harmful microbes are kept at bay by a preponderance of beneficial microbes, which outcompete them. But when the balance is disturbed, our health can suffer dramatically, in ways that medicine is only beginning to identify.
To provide a more vivid picture of this, consider the fecal transplant procedure which restores the health of people who have severally-compromised digestive tracts. The process replaces their damaged gut microbiome with a new, healthy microbiome. It is often incredibly effective and life-changing. This is an example of the critical role a healthy microbiome can play.
Or consider the myriad health benefits provided by lactobacillus reuteri, a species of bacteria that may be absent from the gut of almost all adults living in industrialized societies (Li, Armet, et al. Cardiometabolic benefits of a non-industrialized-type diet… Cell Press. 2024) yet just fifty years ago it was widely prevalent in healthy individuals (Lee, Jimenez, and Meisel. Limosilactobacillus reuteri - a probiotic gut commensal... Gut Microbes. 2025).
What wiped out lactobacillus reuteri from our microbiomes? Possibly antibiotics, environmental toxins, and diets deficient in prebiotics.
But the good news is that, when people reintroduce lactobacillus reuteri into their gut, they often experience substantial health benefits, including improved immune function, better intestinal barrier function, reduced incidence of inflammatory disease, and even improvement in behavioral disorders (Mu and Tavella. Role of Lactobacillus reuteri in Human Health and Diseases Frontiers in Microbiology. 2018).
If you have time, read some of the studies I've referenced above, especially the one by Li, Armet et al. It is incredible and very encouraging as to what is possible with simple nutritional changes and lactobacillus reuteri supplementation.
But keep this in mind: the problem with simply ingesting beneficial microbes is that some species don't survive the transit through our stomachs. Further, even when they do survive, if there is insufficient prebiotic substrate to support them once in our gut, they rapidly die. This is one reason why consuming prebiotics is vitally important to our health --- they nourish a host of beneficial microbes which are producing the vitamins and hormones our bodies need to survive.
And remember, different species of beneficial microbes need different types of prebiotics. Just like dogs need different foods than rabbits, which need different foods than birds. Similarly, some microbes do well on inulin (as found in onions, garlic, or chicory root), whereas other microbes require the fructooligosaccharides found in fruits, or galactooligosaccharides (dairy, beans, and some root vegetables), as examples.
And there are other sorts of prebiotics too, beyond those few --- such as hyaluronic acid --- a type of prebiotic which is uniquely abundant in animal tissues, and which provides nourishment in our gut to various beneficial microbes.
Hyaluronic acid has not in the past been thought of as a prebiotic, but researchers have found that is exactly what it is (Huang, Su, et al. The prebiotic and anti-fatigue effects of hyaluronan Frontiers in Nutrition. 2022).
Its prebiotic effects are therapeutic by increasing the populations of various beneficial microbes (such as bifido-bacteria; akkermansia muciniphila --- which provides numerous pro-metabolic effects; and faecalibacterium prausnitzii --- an amazing microbe which produces intestinal butyrate which helps heal our intestinal lining, improves blood sugar levels, and even enhances sleep quality).
Hyaluronic acid's prebiotic effects result in increased production of all kinds of beneficial short-chain fatty acids, not just butyrate. This results in an array of potential health benefits, including reduced blood sugar, normalized blood pressure, improvements in fatty liver, and improved sleep quality.
Sadly, most people today are getting very little hyaluronic acid in their diets. This is primarily because they have an aversion to organ meats, chicken skin, bones and connective tissue. And yet historically, most populations around the world had no such aversion, and they enjoyed enhanced vitality as a result.
To get more hyaluronic acid in our diets, we can do a few simple things: when we eat chicken, we can leave the skin on; when we eat meat for dinner, we can occasionally include healthy organ meats (chicken hearts taste incredible); when we eat sausages, we can insist that they be made from natural casings (such as lamb casings --- i.e. lamb intestines); and of course --- we can drink (daily) healthy and nourishing bone broth, made from nutrient-dense bones and hyaluronic-rich connective tissues. Always from certified organic, pure sources.
In summary, when we consume more hyaluronic acid, we nourish the beneficial microbes in our digestive tracts, stimulating the production of an array of critical nutrients, vitamins, and hormones, which in turn result in a cascade of pro-metabolic and life-stimulating benefits.
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