Episode 63: Should You Be Taking a Collagen Supplement?
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Episode Description
In this episode of The Up-Beet Dietitians podcast, Emily and Hannah are answering a common question - what’s all the hype around collagen supplements? Can they actually improve your skin and build strong joints, or are they just a hoax? Why is it being added to bars, cookies, and even popcorn? Be sure to listen to find out all about this very popular supplement!
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Participant #1:
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to a brand new episode of the upbeat Dyson podcast. Today we are answering a common question that I get. Emily I don't know if you do. I'm guessing you do it in the world you live in. Oh, you don't? No. Anyway. Okay, maybe I do. That doesn't matter. Anyway, collagen. That's the big word you got to do. So collagen, like I said, I get asked all the time if it is a necessary supplement. It's very popular on the markets right now. Vinyl Proteins is like, the big company. You may have seen like the big Blue bottle. They have even gotten Jennifer Aniston as the spokesperson, which is like a big time that they're doing really well. Yeah. And when you go to the grocery store, more like the bougie store, like a fresh thyme or a whole food, you can find like, collagen hot chocolate, collagen, body wash and creams, collagen, brownies flavored, collagen get out of your water. But like, what even is collagen with all the hype about we're going to answer all those questions today. Yeah. You also might see at Costco.
Participant #1:
Yeah. So let's talk about collagen. So, first and foremost, collagen is a structural protein found in the skin, bones, ligaments, and tendons of humans and animals. It's actually the most abundant protein found in the human body, and it's primarily made up of amino acids, those being like glycine, hydroxyproline and proline. And we get collagen building blocks from the food that we consume that are a little bit higher in collagen. So, like, our body will use these food sources to create its own collagen. And as we age, a lot of things happen. One of those kind of being associated with collagen is our body is not as efficient with making collagen. So since it is a structural protein, there's often times decline seen in collagen production, which can lead to deterioration of joint skin, hair, and nails. Common things that happen as you age. Yeah, but there are actually I don't think a lot of people know that there are many different types of collagen as well. And there are actually 28 different types. But the first three tend to be the most common or like popular ones found in different collagen supplements to give you kind of the rundown of what differentiates them is the first one makes up 90% of our body's collagen. This provides the primary structure to our skin, tendons, bones and ligaments. Type two is found in elastic cartilage. It helps with joints support. Type three is found in muscles, arteries, and organs. And four and five, those aren't as common. But just for fun, z, four is found in the layers of skin, and then five is found in corneas of our eyes, some layers of skin, hair, skin, tissue, and actually the tissue of our placenta, which is very fun. But the biggest thing to know is when we eat protein, they'll make different types of different types of proteins. It's broken down to amino acids. That's kind of the primary makeup of protein, which our body uses for kind of whatever it sees fit, and also whatever kind of protein it is specifically as well, and what it can be applied to. Not like we eat collagen containing foods, and our body uses those amino acids, not collagen, to build more collagen. It all uses the hydroxyproline, the proline, the biscuit, or whatever else it needs, which may include building collagen in the body, but it also may not. Yeah, so it's not as unfortunately directed where this one thing will help, this specific thing. It's kind of your body will deem what is necessary. Yeah, it's very similar with like branch chain amino acids, too. BCAAs, which will kind of conclude with collagen. If you're eating plenty of protein, you're probably getting enough collagen, but with BCAAs, too, which I know is on the topic today, but when you take BCAA, it's just a handful of branch cannabino acids that you'd also get from food, and you can't pick and choose where those amino acids go in the body. They're just used where the body needs them. Yeah, I was going to say the need basis, supply and demand, maybe economic approaches, your body's economics.
Participant #1:
Okay. So that's kind of the basics of collagen, what it is. So that's what it is. Let's go over why it's so popular right now. There's a few big claims on why it's so beneficial or helpful or whatever. And a really big one is that it claims to improve skin, and as Emily and I always do, is tie it into diet culture and food of eating. There's nothing wrong with aging. You're allowed to age and get wrinkles, and you're going to get older and change. It's just like part of human experience. And diet culture is always trying to sell us different creams and collagen so that we have decreased signs of aging. It's okay if you have signs of aging because you're aging. You're like what's the word when you don't live forever? Immortality. Yeah. You're a mortal human. Like you're not going to live forever. Okay. So I will say that said, there are some studies that do show that it may help with improved skin, hydration, elasticity. But I kind of already alluded to if you are eating plenty of protein foods, and we'll kind of give examples in a little bit, you likely are going to be getting enough collagen, and supplements are only going to help if you're not getting enough from food. But yeah, don't feel like you have to improve your wrinkles if you're getting those because you're human. Yes. It's not bad. Wrinkles aren't bad. Aging is not bad. It's very normal. I'd be afraid if you look the same at age 80 as you do age 20. I'd be really thought about the Diet Coker tie in here until I was reading a book recently, and she was talking about it. She was like, Dieculture plays this role even beyond our weight. It's like aging is a big one. Like, our makeup. Like, you can, of course, wear makeup. Be really fun to wear makeup, but they sell it as like, if you don't wear it, you're not trying hard enough or whatever. You're not pretty. Yeah, I saw someone do an entire video. It's been a little bit to be perfectly honest, I didn't watch the entire video because I got a little bit but their argument was, how about one of the biggest power moves of the makeup industry was I think it was in the 90s or 2000s when they said you do your makeup for you not to impress someone else. But it was still like a manipulation of, like, our makeup still. Yeah, it's like an empowerment type thing. But also you don't need makeup. Yeah. It's fun to do. Exactly. You're allowed to wear it, obviously. It's not like you submitting to diet culture or beauty culture or whatever if you wear it, it's just saying that you don't have to. And you're not like a lesser person if you don't like, you can still be a really great worker, a great mom, a great wife. Not an indicator of work ethic or anything like that. Yeah, thank God, because I'm careful. I think I'm awful.
Participant #1:
Yeah. Not our first priority. We're just trying to get on here and get through the day. Yeah. Most of you guys listen. Honestly, I wish I was good at makeup and hair also. Oh, my gosh, I'm so jealous of people who are good at makeup. And I'd be able to do some French braids. I can't do anything. I have two hairstyles. It's not for lack of trying. I've tried to do different things. My hands just don't connect that way. I don't know. The hand eye coordination. Yes. Okay. Yeah. But shout out to those people that are really good at it. You're really cool. It's the reason behind it. As exactly why I don't want to be good at it. Because I want to make men like me or something gross. I just want to be good at it. I also hate being bad at things.
Participant #1:
Yeah, it's good to reflect on. But one of the next most popular reasons or one of the most popular reasons why collagen is so heavily advertised is improvements in joint health. And this is something that I think it's important to note that it's not just a matter of what you eat and physical activity. It's also a matter of genetics and, like, family history or even just personal history of maybe like osteoarthritis or osteoporosis or any of the various joint diseases, because someone who has a joint disease versus someone who might not is going to experience different they're going to see different changes and improvements in quality of life related to joint health. There have been some studies that have shown that it helped reduce near joint pain or improve joint mobility. But once again, it was more of a matter of if the people or the individuals are even consuming adequate amount of protein and complete protein type. So that's something that I know there's been criticism around. I'm thinking of America, and I don't think I have a very good opinion of this. I'm just going to share what my thoughts are right now. I've heard some criticisms where the portion sizes of protein are just insane when you're going out to eat. But also, I don't think that everyone's eating like that every single meal. And there's a wide variety of types of protein sources that people are consuming and what a solid amount of protein looks like, or too little versus too much versus vegan versus vegetarian, making sure they're consuming adequate amount of protein and whether or not they're consuming, like, complete protein sources. And another whole conversation around that, I don't know if we've mentioned it, we've been talking about complete protein sources, but that essentially means that it has all the essential amino acids that your body requires are essential versus non essential amino acids. Essential, our body is not able to create, not essential. It can make some of those, but the best way to get them is to consume them from food. So if you're not consuming them from food, you're not going to get all these essential amino acids. That's just something that plays a huge part, like tissue health, anything related to muscle. They all have a job. Yeah. And so if we don't eat them, all the essential ones, they're essential to eat, our body won't have what it needs to make all the building blocks that it needs. That actually is big on the next one, too. So the third and final big claim, there's plenty of other claims, but the big one we're going to focus on is that collagen can help to build lean muscle. And this is the same concept. It is a protein, so it may help, but it is definitely encouraged to consume complete proteins if you are trying to build muscle or at least make sure you are getting all the amino acids you need if you are doing any incomplete sources to help with that muscle protein synthesis. So we discussed before, I think, with like, fitness myth episodes, that for most people, your total protein intake is going to matter more than protein timing. There likely isn't a need for you to be like chugging a protein shake as you walk out the door of the gym. Like your muscles are still going to use that protein if it's like an hour later that you eat it or drink it. But for those who really are trying to maximize that muscle protein synthesis, it could be helpful to get it maybe a little bit better timed. And if you are focusing on that, you might as well also be focusing on getting good quality protein sources. Collagen would not be one of those for this purpose. So again, it's not going to be a bad thing if you drink collagen after a workout or have that in some form. But just be sure if that is a big goal of yours to try to focus on more complete protein sources. Like Away protein for example, would be a good example there. And if you're plant based or don't tolerate whey a soy protein or a lot of the plant based protein powders do often combine different types of protein to make sure they do have all the essential amino acids. Like for example, what's the other popular one? Pprotein. They often combine it with soy protein to make sure that it has all the amino acids that it needs. Because unlike way, most of them don't naturally have them in the right quantities on their own. The bottom line of all these really is like they might help, but you probably don't want you to supplement unless you're not getting enough of it in general. Yeah, exactly that. Yeah, that's why it's a supplement. Exactly. You guys probably got stuck coming in if you've heard other people my discussions. Yeah. So we've already kind of alluded to this, but where exactly can you find collagen if you are still interested? So, first and foremost in supplement form and a powder form oftentimes I did not know there were collagen creams. I'm wondering what the absorption of those would even be. I didn't look, but I had like a YouTube ad. It was like an olay body wash. It was like now with body superfood collagen infused. I'm like, okay, that's not amino acids work, I don't think. Yeah, your protein metabolism starts the stomach. I'm not sure if it's right. From your skin to your stomach. Yes. I don't really know how that works there. Rub it over your stomach on your tummy. Yeah, closer contact. That's how that works. There's always some company out there that would advertise probably like eject it into your stomach. Don't do that. No, please don't. This podcast is not medical advice. Never. But especially right now. Yeah, it's supply for powder form or forms we typically would probably recommend a little bit more of since it will be more financially friendly and also probably a little bit more fun to eat. Our food sources coming from like bone broth, chicken, fish and eggs. Yes. I have some colleagues in that I will just like it's flavorless. Usually if you get the flavors with one, obviously I will throw it in coffee sometimes for example, because it has no taste, it doesn't really mess the texture up at all. And it just adds a few grams of protein, which a lot of us can benefit from getting extra off. So obviously no harm if you do choose supplement with this one likely is not one of those ones that you can really overdo. You can overdo anything. But yes, it's probably fine if you are supplementing with it, but don't expect any magic cures from it. Yeah, I also use I love oily. Both also sometimes use collagen. Right. But I do because I just straight up don't eat enough protein and that's a meat problem. But yeah, I also mix it into coffee. Just easy to throw it in. I feel like I have a hard time with breakfast getting enough, so I'll throw it and stuff like that in the morning. One little tip before we kind of give our final thoughts. For collagen synthesis to occur in the body, vitamin C has to be present. So it's important to make sure just in general that you're eating enough vitamin C, which you can of course get from like citrus everything's like oranges. But I think a better source is like bell peppers. If you like bell peppers, one of those bad boys will give you way more than you need. So that's a really good one, broccoli. We said citrus fruits. Am I missing? Those are the big ones. But just be sure to get plenty of vitamin C in general. But especially if you are worried about your collagen production in your body for whatever reason
Participant #1:
to wrap it all up. Should you take a collagen supplement? And if you haven't guessed, the answer is it depends. Not the black and white answer you're probably hoping for. But there's a lot of factors to keep it to. Note that we've kind of mentioned one. Are you eating enough protein as it is from food sources? Are you someone maybe like me who just naturally just doesn't eat enough protein, then maybe you'll benefit from it also, is it financially accessible to you? Supplements can be kind of costly depending on not only the brand are also making sure it's third party certified because we don't want you buying some cheap supplement that has weird things in it. But also we'll note that collagen is typically derived from animal sources. So if you're vegan or vegetarian, don't consume collagen. It's not something that comes from like the bones of plants. I was actually thinking about this when writing this part of this outline. I was like, the bones of plants. That's what I was thinking. What if someone like because I know I've talked to people about this and people are like, I've had plant based collagen and I was like, plant based collagen. I just thought of this since you're saying that actually if you are vegetarian or vegan and you're like, okay, but I can't consume collagen, how am I going to get enough of it? Like we said it's about those amino acids. So you're still going to get the amino acids that are making up. Collagen won't be in the collagen form. Yes. So that's the biggest factor there. Yeah, exactly. You can get it from all those other forms. I cannot mention the soy pea combo, stuff like that. But last final note about collagen is it is an easy source to get in extra protein if you just need some extra protein. But I would not rely on it for being like, your main complete protein source. Yeah, it is not, but it is just a nice if you get flavorless, easy flavorless. It combines really well with liquids, not clumpy some way. Proteins, depending on the brand, don't mix it very well, I think especially plant proteins like soy, for example, don't always mix the best or pea. So it really does mix pretty well, if that helps you get it down, too. Okay. That's the answer. It depends. Like, it always works. Okay, let's get to our bonus question. Today's question is protein related? The question is, is fish meat? And the reason I thought of this bonus question is we're like having a debate at work one day where when you say, I'm going to go eat some meat, you don't think of fish. You think of usually like, red meat. I think, which I'm kind of giving my answer away here, but I think there's different categories. There's meat, which I think of, like beef. There's poultry, like fish and turkey, chicken and turkey. Gosh, chicken and turkey. And then there's, like, fish and seafood. I feel like you don't think of shrimp when you think of meat. I don't know. What are your thoughts? I was going to say no, because when people tell me they don't eat meat, I always think anything that's not fish. Right. And I always ask, do you eat pizza, though? Yeah. And then I'm like, are you Pescetarian? Yeah, I eat fish sometimes. That's what I was thinking. It's animal meat, right? Like animal flesh, animal tissue.
Participant #1:
Gross. But it is a construct. Meat is a construct. And I do not think fish is meat. I think fish is its own little category that is seafood. Yeah. I think even that the way we use it, technically. Yeah, fish is meat. It's a meat of animal art. Fish, animals. Yes. They're not mammals. Yeah, it's mammals versus birth of fish. That'd be weird. So I don't know where I was even going with that, but oh, yeah, it's meat. It's animal flesh. It's just in the way we talk about meat. Unless it's a concept. If someone said, I want meat, they're not going to say, I want tilapia, some tilapia. Yeah. They're going to say, I probably want, like, steak or like, maybe chopped pork. Okay. Would you consider pork meat? We consider pork meat. Now I'm questioning the poultry component. Would you consider chicken meat? Yeah, I would say chicken. Is for some reason, I'm saying an egg is not. Okay. We got meat, which we break into like poultry.
Participant #1:
Okay. Like red meat. Yeah. Would you say like red meat or what would pork be classified as besides pork and meat? There's not like a poultry category for pork, right? It's like a category name we're missing. Yeah, because fish is seafood. They got their overarching. It has multiple things in it. Oh, I feel like there's a word for it. And I feel like any vets or anyone who's really into me is going to get really upset. I know that we get hogs
Participant #1:
farm. Set a hog with that, please. Can I get that cob cell without any hog on it? Cobb no hog.
Participant #1:
Gross. Makes you want to go vegan. Yeah, I don't know. And like, our eggs meat, hoof animals. I think you didn't hear my question. Our eggs meat. I was just really stuck on that's true, though. Hugged animals. Like cows. Yeah. Okay. I couldn't picture them. Yeah, they have toes. Are those hooks? Yeah, they're hard. I want no picture with pig brain. Pig. Because you can eat pig feet. You don't eat cow feet. Maybe they do. They have those cute little ways. I think of horses. Yeah. I'm looking at pictures and I'm seeing different things. What kind of feet do cows have? Especially like, a dog for some reason. It's got like, little tobys okay. Cows, definitely. I think pigs have hooks. Cows, beans. I guess cows have, like, the little toes too. Second most asked question. Do pigs have hooves? After do pigs have teeth? Hooves are clothing in shape, divided into to enable the pigs have more stability. Like cows. Cows are the same ones. Yeah, but they're like pinkish. That's where it kind of throws you off as they kind of blend in. They're so ugly. Oh, my God. I'm looking at the chopped off by them by themselves. What do you look for? Just type in the word pig feet. I don't want to do that. I have two pig temples. Just pig feet. Oh, gosh. Like the pink one with the toes, like, on a cutting. These are a delicacy, though, in some countries, a lot of Asian countries. So I can't I will not hate on it. I'm not hating. It's just jarring to look at it first. When they're raw, they look pretty good with the coat. Yeah. The coast ones look like sauce. I would not eat it raw. It's just how there's like, two of them. They're just, like, hanging out, but there's like, no body connected to it. It's like if you saw two human feet just like, hanging there. Any other body parts?
Participant #1:
I would not like to see any two raw types of feet. Cow feet. Okay. Well, they have smell. Chickens have no they have their, like, spiky little palates that Google before. People eat chicken feet. That's true. Those are edibles, too. I don't know if those are cooked. Okay. I'm looking at pictures. I think they cook those. This says we trim our chicken hubs every six to eight weeks. Hubs. Wait, now that what's a hoof? What's the definition of a hoof? It was like they just have long nails. Like acrylics definition. This is really taking a turn. I'm going to look up categories of meat. I can handle that at work with this. Question came up and it was not helpful at all. Red meat, poultry, seafood. Seafood. Well, it's pork. Red meat. No, I think red meat is beef. Lamb, bison got lamb. Lamb. They get pubs or go and land the same thing. I'm exposing how little I know about farm life in this bonus question no of sheep. What was the first one? Lamb. Are lambs and sheep different? That's more of the question, I feel. Yeah. I don't know. Well, I'm going to look it up. Is pork Fred meat? It was my first question that I still don't know. We also never answered the egg question. We got side check on that one. I don't think eggs are meat because this could become like a pro life, pro choice debate at some point. Like, is the egg oh, God, a chicken just before it's a chicken? We won't get into that. We'll let you guys make your own decisions on that one. We're going to be here for a long time. We're not talking about that chicken LifeStart at conception.
Participant #1:
Okay. I think eggs are its own thing. Eggs are put in the dairy category, which is the whole other thing. I don't think they should be dairy. No, I think they should definitely in that sense. Okay, maybe that does solve my answer then. I'd say they're meet that it's not very sound argument.
Participant #1:
All my two food categories, there are basically I think we just put them all under protein. Yeah. Where do you draw the line of protein? Like, is peanut butter a protein? No, because peanut butter has more fat than it does. So it's like the ratio. You think that's what my biggest argument is because law foods have different components of macronutrients, but it's like which one they have the most of. That's why we always say it's not black and white. You can't just say as soon as this multiple purposes. Also, I think lambs are younger sheep. So what's a goat? Can you eat goat? Yeah. You have goat's milk? Goat milk, cheese. Is goat milk dairy? Yes. Okay. It's not just cows. It's not just cow dairy. I think animal milk
Participant #1:
in the world of marketing, I think dairy is anything cow's milk. Like, it's like dairy free products. It's not like goat's milk free market is dairy free and be made of goat milk. That's what I feel like they can do. I'd say that's still dairy, but in the sense of when someone's asking me about dairy free, I think that they prioritize the cow's milk. Like, if you were vegan and you were dairy free because you were vegan, you couldn't have goat milk either. That's true.
Participant #1:
Gosh. Also, is goat milk like, lower in lactose or is it similar? Lactose? It's lower. That's what I thought. As a lactose intolerant individual, I know you would go in. I'm well versed at the different types of which ones caused me pain. Yeah. Okay. We've discovered like eight new bonus questions from this bonus question. Yeah. I'm kind of freaked out still by the different that's my question. And I really would like an answer from a farmer, like a vet or someone. Yeah. So please. We don't use Twitter. We also do like instagram. I feel like Twitter would be so fun if we knew how to use it. No, I feel like we could learn a lot of questions on we could learn a lot on there. I know. And we could have them submit bonus questions. We should do that also. We should play our course. We didn't talk about our course on here. Oh, yeah. We're making a course, so it should be out this fall. You guys will likely hear us before that. It is going to be like the brainchild of Emily and I, just all things intuitive eating. It's like a big master course on like if you are wanting to become an intuitive eater, what the heck do you do? It's going to be like just everything. Like diet, culture, hunger and fullness stitching the diets. It's basically going to be our rendition of all the different principles of intuitive eating and how to actually incorporate them into your own life. So have corresponding challenges and handouts and things like that go along with it? Yeah, we have been working on this for many months. Yeah. And I swear it's like everything we know put into one and everything. In my opinion, you'll probably need to know about intuitive eating. And a lot of people have asked, like, we're always getting intuitive eating questions, but it's going to be a really nice resource that it's self paced, so you can do it however quickly or however slowly you like. We're going to have all those resources. And then if there's only some components of intuitive you want to learn about, you could kind of purchase that package. But there is a link on our website that I will put in all of our podcast descriptions from now on. So you'll have to see it,
Participant #1:
but you can join the Waitlist if you're interested. If you join the Waitlist, you might get a discounted price and you'll be the first snow when it goes live. Yes. Great. First one. Have access to join. Yeah. Exciting. We're going to mega brainchild. Yeah, we promise. We'll advertise it better. We're not the best advertising things we have also we have grocery lists. I don't know if we've ever talked about that. We've never talked about those. But we have grocery. Lists and a meal planning template and pantry staples all on our website that you can purchase. We kind of went through and sorted out kind of our favorite items from the most popular grocery stores. If you'd like to kind of see what we would recommend there, they are not that expensive, which we love because we are also very financially conscious, but be sure to check those out. Just kind of another little fun thing you can utilize for an extra resource. Everything's on our website. That's kind of the best way to know anything about the podcast course products blog. I don't know if you've ever talked about the blog on no. Well, it's all kind of new. We just made the website a few months or so ago. A few months ago. So that's officially going to be our main hub now before we even have a website. It's kind of just like everything was thrown together wherever. So we'll try to be better about incorporating these things into the episode without being hopefully too spamming. We know you guys aren't here to hear us self promote constantly, so we're not going to try to do that. But just so you guys do know, we have other things besides just the podcast that we're working on. So stay tuned for all those great things. The website is place to go, so the upbeatdiaeticians.com Gosh can never say that that's where you find everything we'll get in the description. Yeah, it's good. Go check it out. Just for fun, even just for fun. Have a blast. It's cute. I think it's got beats everywhere. It's amazing. We love it. Yeah. Let's finish this episode because I feel like we've talked about chicken feet and like the college was like not even half the episode. We're just talking about animal and animal failing. We can do whatever we want. If you're someone who has opinion on if chicken have hubs, please let us know. We would like to know. That was not even the bonus question, but we would like to know also if you want or have a thought on efficient meat. Yes. Less knows that well too, because maybe there's a category we're forgetting about or maybe there's some specific component that encompasses meat and we just didn't think about it. Cool. All right, thank you for listening to this episode. Be sure to check out the podcast description with all those links and everything and we will talk to you next week, I think. I guess next week. So you'll enjoy. Yeah, I think that every other at this point I have no idea. I believe you, but we've got to guess. You'll see you're on the edge. Oh, yes. Okay. It's going to be a good one. It's going to be good. All right, talk to you guys later. Okay, bye.
