Nowadays, collagen is everywhere. It’s in powders, supplements, creams, and more. Collagen production is essential for healthy hair, skin, joints, teeth, and muscles. As you age, your collagen levels naturally drop. This can lead to sagging skin and even affect bone health. A collagen booster can be very helpful. But, you’re probably thinking aren’t most collagen supplements animal-based?
How Is Vegan Collagen As Good As Animal Collagen?
Yes, there are a lot of animal-based collagen supplements available on the market but you can also get vegan collagen builders. These plant-based supplements can help boost your natural collagen production without the need to consume animal products. So, is vegan collagen as good as animal collagen? Let’s break down the differences and take a look.
Related: Plant-Based Collagen Builder Vs Animal-Based Collagen Supplements: Which Is Best For You?
Four reasons why vegan collagen is as good as animal collagen:
- Animal collagen isn’t absorbed as collagen into the body
- Amino acids from plant sources are more useful in building collagen
- Vegan collagen builders are more sustainable
- Vegan collagen builders have a higher safety profile
What is Collagen and Why is it so Important?
Before delving straight into vegan collagen vs animal collagen, let’s briefly explore the role collagen plays in the body.
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the body. It’s often called the “glue” that holds everything together. It’s responsible for your body’s structure and keeping your skin, muscles, tendons, and ligaments together and functioning properly.
Related: Collagen for Healthy Joints, Tendons and Ligaments
There are four main types of collagen and 90% of your body’s collagen is made up of type I. It’s what provides structure to your teeth, skin, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Unfortunately, as you age your collagen levels start to drop. This can result in things like wrinkles and fine lines. Other factors can also cause collagen levels to decrease like sun exposure, smoking, and sugar and refined carbs.
By using a collagen building supplement, you can increase your levels of collagen in the body. By boosting collagen levels, it can help increase muscle mass, improve skin appearance and elasticity, and may help reduce your risk of developing joint disorders like osteoarthritis.
Collagen comes from the connective tissues in your body but it can also come from animals. Hence why a lot of the collagen supplements on the market are derived from animals like cows, pigs and fish. However, vegan collagen boosters are an excellent choice for increasing collagen levels. Unlike animal collagen, vegan collagen focuses on giving the body the nutrients it needs to boost the body’s own collagen production.
If you’re looking for a natural collagen boost, there are certain plant-based foods you can eat to increase your collagen production. Foods like garlic, mushrooms, flax seeds, cashews, and bell peppers are all excellent sources of collagen-boosting ingredients.
Related: 9 Foods To Naturally Boost Your Collagen For Healthier Skin, Joints, Bones, And Gut
How Does Vegan Collagen Builders Compare to Animal Collagen?
1. Animal Collagen Isn’t Absorbed As Collagen In The Body
When you ingest animal collagen, it’s not instantly turned into collagen into the body. The animal collagen needs to be broken down before it can be used. Collagen is digested into amino acids and peptides in your gut. In order to be used by your body, those amino acids and peptides have to be absorbed by the small intestine and circulated into your bloodstream where the body uses these nutrients in whatever capacity it needs. It will not necessarily be remade into collagen.
Plant-based collagen builders focus on giving your body everything it needs to increase the production of its own collagen. Rather than putting external collagen into the body, vegan collagen builders work to help the body create more. It does this by using collagen-building ingredients and plant-based protein. By using a more natural, inside-out approach to collagen, you can focus on improving your body’s supply of collagen.
2. Amino Acids From Plant Sources Are More Useful in Building Collagen
Collagen contains a specific set of amino acids: glycine, arginine, proline, and hydroxyproline. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein and these four amino acids are essential for building collagen levels. As the name suggests, vegan collagen boosters use amino acids sourced from plants. A benefit of this is that these amino acids can be easier to digest. Especially if they are fermented. Therefore, they can be more useful in building collagen as they can be quickly absorbed and used within the body.
In general, diets that are heavy on plant matter tend to be healthier. Multiple studies have shown that meat as a source of protein isn’t that healthy. Vegan collagen supports a plant-based diet by helping to increase collagen levels without having to consume animal-derived products. Typically, plant-based diets are associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease. Vegan collagen allows you to stick to a diet that’s known to be healthier and reduce the risk of several serious diseases like heart disease and diabetes.
3. Vegan Collagen Builders Are More Sustainable
Collagen is sourced from animals. It can be made from pigs, cows, chickens, marine species, or other animals. Animal collagen is made from the bones, tendons, and skin of these animals and also from eggshells. Most collagen comes from the hides and connective tissues of cows (and fish in the case of marine collagen). These hides would normally be discarded as a byproduct of the meat industry, but since they’re a source of collagen, the hides are able to be "upcycled" and turned into collagen products.
One of the biggest benefits of using vegan collagen is that it is more sustainable. Given the effects animal agriculture has on the environment and how animal-derived collagen is made, vegan collagen is becoming increasingly popular. Science has discovered a way to make collagen much more environmentally-friendly and cruelty-free. In an effort to support the humane treatment of animals, using plants to help your body produce its own collagen is a much better alternative to traditional animal-based collagen.
Although animals may not be farmed specifically for collagen, they have been a part of the animal agriculture system at some point in their life. Animal agriculture is responsible for more greenhouse gases than the entire global transportation system together. According to the United Nations, shifting towards a vegan diet could help combat the worst effects of climate change.
4. Vegan Collagen has a Higher Safety Profile
When you source every ingredient you know exactly where it comes from. This way, products can be safer for the consumer.
The problem with animal collagen is that there is a concern for a risk of transmission of illness. Animal-based collagen is more likely to come into contact with common allergens or bacteria. Just like anything coming from the meat industry, it is susceptible to contamination from pesticides, herbicides, steroids, antibiotics, prescription drug metabolites, insecticides, parabens and glyphosates stored in the bones of conventionally-raised animals.
Although one of the biggest benefits of vegan collagen builders is that no animals were harmed in the process of making it, it’s also very useful for people with allergies. Some collagen supplements contain shellfish and eggs which are two of the eight most dangerous food allergies. With vegan collagen, there is a much lower risk of an allergic reaction.
Sunwarrior’s Collagen Building Protein Peptides and Beauty Greens Collagen Booster
Your body is designed to produce its own collagen, so why ingest animal-derived collagen? Sunwarrior’s Collagen Building Protein Peptides is designed to support your body’s natural collagen production. With plant-based amino acids and peptides, your body can effectively convert the nutrients into collagen.
Instead of using the bones, hooves, and hides of animals, Sunwarrior has found the vegan solution. The keto-friendly blend is also soy-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free. On top of collagen-boosting ingredients, the collagen builder contains beauty-enhancing nutrients such as vitamin C and trace minerals. Other ingredients include:
- Organic brown rice peptides
- Silica
- Organic pea protein
- Hyaluronic acid
- Organic biotin
- Organic tremella mushroom
- Trace minerals
- Organic leafy green blend
Whether you follow a vegan diet or not and are looking to increase your collagen levels, vegan collagen builders is a great option. By focusing on a more natural approach, plant-based collagen boosters work with your body to raise collagen production. Considering your collagen production can start to slow down in your mid-to-late 20s, collagen supplements can be part of a healthy routine early on in life.
Vegan collagen builders work in a different way than traditional animal-derived collagen. With vegan options available, many more people can reap the benefit of an increase in collagen production to help reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles, healthier hair, skin and nails, as well as support gut health and joints. By combining collagen-building protein peptides with a healthy lifestyle you can reap the benefits of a collagen-rich body.
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