Dr. J breaks down collagen, whey, hydrolyzed beef, and pea protein to help you choose the right protein powder for your goals. He walks through the nine essential amino acids, why branched-chain amino acids like leucine, isoleucine, and valine matter for muscle, and how each protein’s amino acid profile differs. He explains why whey is a complete, leucine-rich option for post-workout recovery, why collagen’s glycine, proline, and hydroxyproline support connective tissue, skin, hair, nails, and the gut lining, and why hydrolyzed beef protein can be a complete, dairy-free alternative. He also shares how he uses each one day to day, what research shows about whey versus collagen for muscle protein synthesis in older adults, and why grass-fed, tested sources matter for avoiding glyphosate.
What You’ll Learn
The nine essential amino acids and why animal protein matters
Why branched-chain amino acids are a unique fuel source for muscle
How whey, collagen, beef, and pea protein compare side by side
Why collagen supports connective tissue, skin, hair, nails, and gut health
When a dairy-free beef protein may be the better fit
How to choose quality sources and reduce glyphosate exposure
Key Highlights
Related Health Resources
http://www.justinhealth.com/gluten-video-series
http://www.justinhealth.com/thyroid-hormone-balance
http://www.justinhealth.com/female-hormone-balance
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Reference
Oikawa SY, et al. Whey Protein but Not Collagen Peptides Stimulate Acute and Longer-Term Muscle Protein Synthesis With and Without Resistance Exercise in Healthy Older Women: A Randomized Controlled Trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2020.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31919527/
Podcast Transcript
[00:00:00]
And we are live. It’s Dr. J in the house. Today we’re gonna be talking about collagen protein, whey protein and hydrolyzed beef protein. This is a topic I get all the time. What amino acid profile is the best? This is an important topic because a lot of people are using meal replacements. They may have chronic gut health issues.
They may need ways to get extra protein in. We’re gonna dive into this topic. Again, link’s down below if you wanna reach out and schedule with myself. Again, Dr. J here, worldwide. Let’s dive in. So I’ve got an infographic up here. Let’s pull it up. So the first thing out of the [00:01:00] gate is we’re looking at collagen, whey and beef protein.
So the decision lens. The first thing is we need animal protein to get high-quality amino acids. So here are the big nine amino acids right here, so you can see them. I’ll kind of zoom in. The first one is histidine. These are our essential amino acids. That means your body cannot make them. Fun fact: there are essential fatty acids, there are essential amino acids, which we’ll go over here, but there is no essential carbohydrate.
So it just tells you what macronutrients are gonna be the most important. Histidine’s one, isoleucine second, leucine third, lysine fourth, methionine fifth, phenylalanine sixth, threonine seventh, tryptophan eighth, and valine is ninth. Now when we look at some of these amino acids, we have our branched-chain amino acids.
We’ll go over those. Those are isoleucine, right here, leucine and valine. These amino acids are special. Why are they special? [00:02:00] Because they can be used by the muscle for fuel. Most amino acids actually have to get broken down into glucose. Gluconeogenesis: your liver breaks them down, spits out glucose, and then your body can use that as muscle fuel, but it’s using it as glucose.
So the benefit of isoleucine, leucine and valine is these amino acids can be taken up by the muscle right away. So it’s instantaneous muscle fuel, great for hard workouts, so your body is not gonna go into a catabolic metabolism. And you’re gonna find animal-based proteins tend to have a much higher branched-chain amino acid profile on average.
So the first thing is we have to ask, are we getting enough animal proteins? That’s the first one, right? Grass-fed beef, chicken, fish, pork, lamb. Good high-quality proteins are good. On the essential amino acid side, for instance, I didn’t put it on here, but pea protein. We’ll go over the amino acid profiles.
Pea is interesting. It’s a little bit low in the sulfur amino acids, so it’s gonna be a little bit low in methionine, which is a precursor to [00:03:00] cysteine and those glutathione precursor amino acids. Pea protein is a complete protein, but it’s a little bit low in those sulfur amino acids. So still good, still fine.
It’s a little bit chalky, right? Not the best texture on it, and it’s a little bit low in that profile. Now let’s go on to whey protein. So with whey protein, you can go isolate or concentrate. Isolate’s typically gonna be a little bit more hypoallergenic, but it’s gonna be a complete amino acid profile.
It’s gonna have all nine essential amino acids. There’s potentially a little bit of dairy in there, maybe a tiny bit of casein or lactose, so if you are dairy sensitive, this may be a reason why you want to avoid it. Whey protein, though, has a nice texture, a nice mouthfeel, a little bit more creamy, milkshaky, if you will.
Ideally, you’re choosing a high-quality grass-fed whey protein. The benefit of whey is it’s gonna have those good full-spectrum amino acids. If it’s coming from grass-fed cows, you’re gonna have that really good, healthy amino acid profile, which is gonna be better and different. And let’s say the fatty acids in the meat overall would be [00:04:00] more anti-inflammatory as well.
Usually with the whey protein, you’re not gonna be getting the fatty acids, but it will influence the amino acid profile. It’s gonna be a much healthier, biologically appropriate profile. Now we have collagen, right? So the big thing with collagen is it’s almost a complete protein. It has eight out of nine essential amino acids.
So it’s got histidine, it’s got isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, it’s missing tryptophan, and it has valine. So this is interesting. When we look at amino acids like collagen, I see a lot of patients with mood issues. And so they may be lower in serotonin, which can impact melatonin and sleep.
I like collagen peptides. Why? Because we do not get a lot of these amino acids. They’re connective tissue-based amino acids. We’re getting them from the hide or the skin. We’re getting them from the connective tissue, the cartilage, maybe even the bones. And typically in a peptide form, they’re gonna add different proteolytic enzymes onto that connective tissue.
They’re gonna break it down, and that’s gonna make that amino [00:05:00] acid very easy to break down and very easy to absorb. Now, the nice thing about collagen peptides in peptide form is it’s pretty neutral flavor. So I like it because you can mix it with your coffee, mix it with your tea, add it to bone broth.
You can just add it to a drink, and you’re not really gonna taste it. It’s pretty neutral, and it takes on the flavor of your drink, assuming that you’re using collagen peptides that are enzymatically processed. Not sulfuric acid processed, but enzymatically. So in my line, my True Collagen, we pay the extra to have it enzymatically processed via enzymes, not sulfuric acid.
So it’s just a different breakdown process. Usually you can feel it in the aftertaste. It’s a little bit off. It’ll impact your coffee flavor. And so that’s something I learned early on. So collagen is great for connective tissue. Going back to my infographic here, half of collagen is gonna be three amino acids.
Actually, they’re not even essential amino acids that are in [00:06:00] it. So you’re gonna see glycine, you’re gonna see… I’m having a brain fart here. I’m gonna just double-check. I wanna make sure I’m right.
Glycine’s the major one, yep. Proline and hydroxyproline. So if you look at half the amino acids in collagen, it’s gonna be glycine, proline and hydroxyproline. So those are half. The other half are gonna be the remaining amino acids, including the nine essential amino acids. So you have less of the nine essential amino acids, so that half is gonna be lower.
You’re gonna have a lot of glycine. What’s glycine good for? It’s very good for the brain. It’s very good for lowering glutamate and for relaxation. It’s also a very good precursor to glutathione. It’s a building block, right? Glutathione is a tripeptide: glutamine, glycine, cysteine. Cysteine tends to be the rate-limiting amino acid, but glycine is important. [00:07:00]
Glycine’s really important for the enterocyte, so the building blocks for the gut lining, so excellent for the gut. Very good for relaxation, sleep and modulating glutamate in the brain. But again, I like collagen because it’s very hypoallergenic. If you get a good formula like mine, True Collagen, where you’re gonna have it in a peptide form, that means it’s very well broken down, not much digestion needed, and it tends to be pretty hypoallergenic.
You’re also gonna get a lot of glutamine in there, too. Again, that’s not an essential amino acid. All right, and then with our collagen, it’s missing tryptophan. So why is that important? If I have someone with mood issues or sleep issues, we’re gonna be giving 5-HTP or a building block like tryptophan. It goes tryptophan, then 5-HTP, which is 5-hydroxytryptophan.
That goes to serotonin, then melatonin. Now, the rate-limiting factor for tryptophan to go to 5-HTP is the hydroxylase enzyme. That enzyme converts [00:08:00] tryptophan to 5-HTP. And so if we bypass that enzyme by just giving 5-HTP, which is one step down that enzymatic chain, we actually can get higher levels of serotonin.
So typically, if we see anyone that has mood issues or sleep issues, right, we’re gonna be using 5-HTP with B6, because B6 is that rate-limiting cofactor that helps convert it. If you’re just doing tryptophan, you tend to have a rate-limiting conversion with the hydroxylase enzyme.
And so then we give the 5-HTP, which bypasses that governor enzyme, if you will, and then we also give the corresponding B6 to bump it up so we can have that optimal conversion. All right, so if we go back here, the benefits of collagen are gonna be the hydroxyproline, proline and glycine. Very good for connective tissue, very good for hair, very good for skin, very good for nails.
Again, collagen is 19 amino acids. Those first three, hydroxyproline, proline and glycine, are really what half of collagen is. The rest of it is gonna be the other 16 amino acids. [00:09:00] Very small amounts, relatively speaking. So collagen benefits: easy to digest, missing tryptophan, which is kind of a negative, but we can always adjust for that.
Easy to digest, very hypoallergenic, neutral to mix in, which is nice. So that’s really good as well. And that’s made from the connective tissue. And next we have hydro beef protein. So what’s the difference between hydro beef and collagen? They’re both coming from beef. If you have grass-fed, that’s the better way to do it, right?
The difference is hydro beef is gonna come from the muscle, so it’s gonna be higher in methionine. It’s gonna be much more of a broad-spectrum, complete essential amino acid profile. So you’ll have those nine essential amino acids as the foundation, which is great. You’re gonna have a lot more methionine, a lot more sulfur in there.
You’re gonna have higher levels of BCAAs, so our leucine, isoleucine and valine. Again, you do want grass-fed because it’s gonna shift the amino acid profile, make it more natural, more anti-inflammatory, more beneficial overall when Mother [00:10:00] Nature hasn’t been disrupted, if you will.
Hydro beef does not blend well, so you need a good blender to blend it up. You can’t use a protein shaker cup and shake it up. It’s pretty clotty. It kind of coagulates. Even the little USB-C powered hand blenders, you really gotta work at it. I use my Vitamix and I put it in there slowly and blend it in.
And so I like it. It’s a complete amino acid profile. A lot of times I will mix whey protein with beef protein. I’ll do a chocolate beef and a vanilla whey and combine those. That’s really nice. Nice flavor in there. I’ll usually mix an egg yolk in there if I want to make a full meal out of it.
Or I’ll put a full egg in, so that adds another seven grams of protein. And then the egg yolk’s got all the good fatty acids, the vitamin A, and the lutein and all the good nutrients for the eyes. So that’s our big amino acid profile check. So whey is a complete protein. You have the dairy issue, so if you’re autoimmune and you’re really sensitive, you may wanna pause that.
Collagen blends really well, mixes in, and does not alter flavor, so you can add it into tea or coffee. I’ve done collagen in my [00:11:00] coffee for over a decade. I love it. I do about 20 grams of collagen peptides every day. Really good for hair, for skin, for nails, for connective tissue, excellent for aging. You lose a little bit of collagen every year after, I think, age 30 or 40.
You start to lose copper peptides as well. So you start to lose that connective tissue every single year, and so having the building blocks is really vital. Hydro beef, again, is a little bit clotty and does not blend well. You need a good blender for it, but it has a nice complete amino acid profile. I use a hydro beef that has a little bit of stevia in there, pretty low sugar, and it does really well.
So we talked about the benefits here, right? Whey is very leucine-rich. Leucine is very anabolic, so a complete protein really helps with muscle protein synthesis, so it’s great for post-workout, right? It signals that good anabolic metabolism, helps with growth hormone, helps with muscle recovery. Again, collagen, because it’s coming from the connective tissue, is gonna be signaling, hey, tendons, [00:12:00] ligaments, connective tissue, skin. Very helpful, right?
It has those nice good amino acids, very helpful for knees, for joints, for hair, for skin, for nails. And again, hydro beef is a whole-profile alternative. It’s more of a complete base protein. Again, I would say whey is gonna be superior. The reason why you would choose beef over whey is, one, you just don’t wanna have dairy all the time, and maybe you’re a little bit more dairy sensitive, right?
Maybe you just feel better with the beef. Maybe you have some autoimmune stuff or some gut stuff, and you just wanna be a little bit more careful on the dairy front, and you’re just trying to avoid it out of the gate. So those would be the big reasons why you’d want to be a little bit more careful on that out of the gate.
And then again here, so right here: whey protein over collagen for acute muscle protein synthesis in older women. Whey and pea protein increased integrated muscle protein synthesis; collagen did not in older men. So that’s interesting. That’s gonna be your anabolic metabolism, healing and recovery. So you got a little bit more anabolic tissue healing out of [00:13:00] the whey and pea, where collagen did not.
Again, I think we use these amino acids for different things. I like collagen in my daily life because I don’t even know it’s there. I think of it as my creamer for my coffee that I don’t even know is there. And then for my protein shakes, that’s where I’m throwing in a beef or a whey, or I’ll even mix in a pea protein and maybe add in five grams of creatine as well, just to get a little bit of variety in there.
Again, whole foods first, but amino acids and protein shakes can be wonderful post-workout. They can be wonderful when you’re on the go and you don’t have time to eat. Hey, I gotta go play a pickleball game in 30 minutes to an hour. I don’t have time to digest a rib-eye steak. Let me get a protein shake in.
They’re great in that anabolic window after a workout, so you can get 30 to 40 grams of protein in, get in that anabolic window, peak out your growth hormone, and really help your muscles and tissues recover nicely. So that’s a great way to do it out of the gate. A couple people commented about glyphosate.
Yeah, you just gotta make sure that you are eating high-quality sources, right? [00:14:00] Just don’t get the cheap stuff. Buy from higher quality companies that are gonna source them well, and they’re also gonna test for glyphosate and make sure there’s not gonna be this toxic exposure. So that’s why when you do grass-fed, pasture-fed, whether it’s beef protein or whey protein, you’re less likely to get the glyphosate.
Because guess where the glyphosate is, right? It’s all in the grains. It’s all in the grains and the corn and all that stuff. So if you choose higher quality animal proteins, you’re gonna avoid a lot of that glyphosate exposure. All right, guys, Dr. J here. If you enjoyed the video, please let me know down below.
If you want to dive in deeper on the functional medicine side, there’s a link to reach out to my staff and team below. We are here to help you out and see if you’re a good fit for care. All right, guys, have an awesome day. I’d love to see your comments down below. Take care. Peace.
Oikawa SY, et al. Whey protein but not collagen peptides stimulate acute and longer-term muscle protein synthesis with and without resistance exercise in healthy older women: a randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2020;111(3):708-718. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31919527/
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