Vegetable first, or your collagen is damaged. (Koko)

For healthy skin, you should always eat vegetables(1) at every meal, eat them before you any other types of food, following protein(2) and carb(3). Following the rule also helps your overall health and keeps your weight down because your insulin spike is inhibited and you feel fuller faster.

By eating vegetables first, you reduce glycation reaction.

What's glycation?

It’s a process that sugar molecules attach themselves to protein molecules leading to a breakdown of protein including collagen fibers--fibers that are needed for taut and supple skin. Once healthy collagen fibers lose their elasticity, they become brittle and prone to breakage. This is visible as wrinkled skin. Minimizing the effects of aging requires reducing glycation.

So how do you minimize glycation?

By reducing your intake of simple carbohydrates and sweets, and choosing foods with low glycemic indexes. Also, by avoiding foods cooked at temperatures above 250 degrees.

1. Vegetables (ideally raw veggies) or fiber rich foods

2. Proteins

3. Carbohydrates


If your stomach is digesting vegetable fiber, the carbohydrates--which you eat after your veggies and proteins--get covered with this fiber. This slows down insulin spikes and the speed that sugar is transported into the blood.

Another benefit of eating vegetables first is that the fiber absorbs water in your stomach, making you feel full more quickly.  And raw vegetables have a digestive enzyme which aides in the digestion of proteins.

Protein is hard to digest, so they stay in the stomach too long, forcing other foods to remain in the stomach, and slowing down digestion.

You don’t have to eat all of each type of food (vegetable, protein and carb) to go on to the next one, but you should always start with vegetables and then go on to protein. After that, you can go on to the carbohydrate, or return to the vegetable. The most important thing is vegetables go in first!

In Italian restaurant, usually they serve bread at the beginning, but please don’t! Wait until you get appetizer at least.