Can I Get Enough Collagen from My Food?
There’s a common myth that eating collagen-rich foods (hello, juicy burger!) will flood your body with collagen for youthful skin and hair. In reality, chewing through a steak or burger isn’t the same as sipping a Hydrolyzed Collagen Peptides supplement. Most collagen lives in tendons, skin and gristle rather than the lean meat you eat (1). Tougher cuts like chuck and brisket carry more, but how much collagen a given burger delivers depends on the cut - and nobody’s measuring it at the grill.
Cooking also changes it: heat turns the collagen in meat into gelatin, which your gut digests along with all the other protein on your plate. Simply put, a burger can’t promise the dose - or the form - the research used. If you want collagen for your skin and hair, you’ll need to look beyond the grill.
What Are Collagen Hydrolyzed Peptides And Why They Matter
So, what makes hydrolyzed collagen peptides (the kind you find in supplements like Liquid Collagen Elixir) different from the collagen in food? Native collagen is a triple-helix megamolecule (~300 kDa) that the gut must hack into bite-size fragments before it slips into the bloodstream. Hydrolysis does this hacking in advance, snipping the helix into small peptides about 1–3 kDa – picture spaghetti pre-cut into rice grains. After a dose, these small peptides - still bearing their hydroxyproline “name tags” - appear in the blood, with levels peaking within an hour or two (2). Harvard’s Nutrition Source describes hydrolyzed collagen as a broken-down form of collagen that is more easily absorbed (1).
Think of hydrolysis as the culinary equivalent of Grandma cutting your steak into toddler-safe cubes - only here the kitchen is a biotech lab, and the cubes are ready to put to work.
Why We Use Marine Collagen
All hydrolyzed collagens absorb well - a 2024 double-blind crossover study comparing fish, beef and pork collagen found comparable uptake regardless of source (3). We choose wild-caught marine collagen because it’s predominantly Type I, the main collagen in skin, and because it up-cycles fish-processing leftovers. It dissolves into light, lemony Collagen Water or Liquid Collagen mixes instead of lurking in a gritty shaker bottle.
Burger vs. Collagen Lemonade: The Math Nobody Told Your Grill
Now add calorie math and travel convenience: your burger delivers ~500 kcal; the Elixir clocks in at 35 kcal and lives happily in a carry-on. Suddenly that collagen lemonade looks like a runway-ready shortcut.
Bottom line and Takeaways
Your “collagen-rich” burger is great for protein, but on the road to flawless skin and luscious hair, it can’t beat the targeted power of a well-formulated collagen elixir. With Lemon & Co.’s Liquid Collagen Elixir, you’re essentially sipping a collagen-infused lemonade that delivers the collagen dose studied for skin and hair - all with a smile and a wink. So fire up the grill for a tasty dinner, sure, but leave the collagen-building to the delicious lemon drink that’s actually up for the job!
- Hydrolyzed peptides are pre-cut collagen - the form clinical studies used.
- A burger or a mug of broth delivers an unknown, variable amount of collagen; a sachet delivers 5g every time.
- Marine collagen is predominantly Type I, the main collagen in skin.
- One sachet = 5g of collagen in 35 calories - no grill required.
Prefer to shop on Amazon? The Liquid Collagen Elixir is also available there with Prime shipping.
References
1. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Collagen. The Nutrition Source. Published online no date. Accessed June 5, 2025.
2. Iwai K, Hasegawa T, Taguchi Y, et al. Identification of food-derived collagen peptides in human blood after oral ingestion of gelatin hydrolysates. Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. 2005;53(16):6531-6536. doi:10.1021/jf050206p
3. Virgilio N, Schön C, Mödinger Y, et al. Absorption of bioactive peptides following collagen hydrolysate intake: a randomized, double-blind crossover study in healthy individuals. Frontiers in Nutrition. 2024;11:1416643. doi:10.3389/fnut.2024.1416643
