What is the cheapest way to get collagen?
Answer
Food, by a distance. Slow cooked cuts, bone broth and gelatin all provide collagen cheaply. Among supplements, unflavoured bovine powder is cheapest per gram.
Key takeaways
- What is cheapest overall?
- Ordinary food. Slow cooked cuts, bone broth and gelatin all contain collagen and cost far less per gram.
- Which supplement is cheapest?
- Unflavoured bovine powder, per gram. Capsules cost more per gram and less per day.
- Does cheapest mean best?
- No claim exists for collagen in any form, so cost is one of the few things that can be compared.
The food routes
Collagen is the protein in skin, bone and connective tissue, so it reaches people through food without anyone calling it a supplement. Slow cooked cuts such as shin, cheek and oxtail are rich in it. Bone broth contains it. Gelatin is denatured collagen and is in jelly and a great many desserts.
None of those is measured or standardised, which is the trade off. They are cheap and the dose is unknown.
The cheapest supplement route
Unflavoured bovine collagen powder, on cost per gram, because the raw material is cheaper than marine and flavouring adds cost while reducing collagen per scoop.
Cost per day runs the other way. Futuro Labs Marine Collagen is 28p a day for a 1200mg serving, which is about 23p per gram. A powder at 25 pounds for 30 ten gram servings is 83p a day and 8.3p per gram. Both figures are true and they answer different questions.
What the cheap routes leave out
Vitamin C. Collagen carries no authorised health claim in the UK, and vitamin C carries the one available, for normal collagen formation at 15 percent of its reference value or above.
A plain powder or a bowl of broth contains none, so neither can carry any claim. Futuro Labs Marine Collagen includes 12mg at exactly 15 percent NRV, which is the single clearest difference between products in this category and costs nothing to check.
The full version
- Collagen capsules, powder or liquid?The three formats on dose, cost and adherence.
- How to read a marine collagen labelThe checks that decide value once the price is known.
The product
Futuro Labs Marine Collagen
Futuro Labs Marine Collagen is the 1200mg type 1 marine one with the vitamin C that carries the claim, at 28p a day, fish derived and UK made to GMP standards.
- 1200mg type 1 hydrolysed marine collagen
- 12mg vitamin C and 1.5mg zinc, both 15% NRV
- UK made to GMP, lab tested for purity
- Fish derived. Collagen carries no claim
Sharper Rugby is published by Futuro Labs. If you buy through this link Futuro Labs earns from the sale. Prices are set by Amazon.
Questions players ask
What is the cheapest collagen?
Ordinary food: slow cooked cuts, bone broth and gelatin all contain it.
Which supplement is cheapest per gram?
Unflavoured bovine powder. Capsules cost more per gram and often less per day.
What do the cheap routes miss?
Vitamin C, which carries the only authorised claim in this category.