What is collagen? Collagen is a protein. It is the most common protein in humans and animals and, like every protein, it consists of a long chain of amino acids. What sets collagen apart from most proteins is its shape: three of those chains twist around each other like the strands of a rope. That makes it a strong protein with high tensile strength, the building material that tissue in humans and animals is made of.
In this article we explain what collagen is, where the word comes from, what building blocks it consists of, which types exist, what it is made from and how it ends up in a jar of collagen powder. What collagen does in your body is not covered here: a seller in the European Union is not allowed to say anything about that. Why that is, is explained at the bottom.
What is collagen? The short answer
Collagen is a structural protein: a protein that builds rather than reacts. Enzymes and hormones are proteins that set something in motion; collagen is a protein that forms fibres from which tissue is built. It is made up of three twisted chains of amino acids and it occurs throughout the animal kingdom, from fish to cattle to humans. Plants do not make collagen.
In the shop, "collagen" usually means something more specific: collagen powder, meaning collagen that has been extracted from animal raw material and cut into small pieces (hydrolysed) so that it dissolves in water. More on that below.
What does the word collagen mean?
The word collagen comes from Greek, by way of French. Kólla means glue and the suffix -gen means producing. Collagen is therefore literally "glue producer". The name is older than the chemistry behind it: for centuries, glue was made by boiling animal hides for a long time. What dissolved in the water was collagen breaking down into gelatine. Bone glue and hide glue are in fact gelatine, and gelatine is partially broken-down collagen.
Anyone searching for the meaning of collagen therefore gets two answers that are both correct: a protein from the animal kingdom, and a substance traditionally used to stick things together.
Is collagen a protein?
Yes. Proteins are chains of amino acids, and collagen is one of them. The collagen protein does have a few properties that set it apart from the proteins in, for example, meat, dairy or pulses:
- Three amino acids dominate. About a third of collagen consists of glycine. Proline and hydroxyproline follow. That last amino acid hardly occurs outside collagen, which is why laboratories use it as a measure to determine how much collagen something contains.
- A fixed rhythm. Every third position in the chain is a glycine. That smallest amino acid fits exactly in the centre of the triple helix and holds the strands tightly together.
- No tryptophan. Collagen lacks one of the nine essential amino acids. In nutritional terms, collagen is therefore not a complete protein. It is a protein with its own, one-sided amino acid profile.
On labels and in nutrition tables, collagen simply counts as protein. A 5-gram scoop of collagen powder is almost entirely protein, containing the amino acids in the proportions above.
How is collagen structured?
A single collagen chain consists of more than a thousand amino acids. Three of those chains twist around each other into a triple spiral, the triple helix. That is one collagen molecule, and it is large: about 300,000 daltons, a unit of molecular weight that comes up again below when we get to the powder.
Those molecules do not lie loose. They line up side by side and end to end into thin threads (fibrils), and those threads bundle together into fibres. The comparison with a rope holds all the way: from yarn to strand to cord. The tighter that bundling, the stronger and less stretchy the fibre.
Collagen is often mentioned in the same breath as elastin, another structural protein. The difference in one sentence: collagen has tensile strength and provides firmness, elastin is stretchy and springs back. They often occur together, but they are two different proteins, each with its own structure.
What types of collagen are there?
28 types of collagen have been described, numbered with Roman numerals. They differ in how their chains are built up and in how they arrange themselves: some types form fibres, others form networks or sheets. For anyone buying collagen, three of them matter.
| Type | Characteristic | Raw material | Where you come across it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type 1 | About ninety per cent of all collagen is type 1. Forms strong fibres. | Bovine hide and fish skin | Almost all collagen powders, including Hūmen's |
| Type 2 | Forms thinner fibres than type 1. | Chicken | Separate supplements, usually low-dose capsules |
| Type 3 | Resembles type 1 and often occurs together with type 1 in raw materials. | Beef | Powders with "type 1 and 3" on the label |
A more detailed overview, including types 4 and 5, can be found in our article on the types of collagen. The answer to the most frequently asked question is already here: collagen powder from beef or fish contains type 1.
Where does collagen come from?
Collagen is always animal-derived. The raw material for collagen powder is a by-product of the food industry: bovine hide, fish skin and scales, pork rind, or parts of chicken for type 2. That raw material is cleaned and processed into a powder of collagen peptides. A producer that does this therefore has a slaughterhouse or fish processor as its supplier and a supplement brand as its customer.
For anyone buying a jar, the question is therefore not just "beef or fish", but also "who made it". Most powders only say "hydrolysed collagen" on the label, without naming a producer. At Hūmen, the raw material is named on the jar: Earth contains VERISOL® from GELITA in Germany, Sea contains NATICOL® from Weishardt in France. Both are type 1, produced in Europe under ISO 9001 and FSSC 22000, one ingredient per jar.
Plant-based collagen does not exist. Products called "vegan collagen" contain amino acids or plant proteins, not collagen. Where collagen is found in ordinary food, you can read in where collagen is found in food.
How is collagen made into powder?
Raw collagen does not dissolve in water. To turn it into a powder you can stir into coffee or a smoothie, the protein is made smaller in steps:
- Cleaning and pre-treatment. The raw material is washed and stripped of fat and other proteins.
- Extraction. Warm water releases the collagen from the tissue. What you then have is gelatine: long chains that do not dissolve in cold water and form a gel when they cool.
- Hydrolysis. Enzymes cut the gelatine chains into short pieces of two to five kilodaltons. These are collagen peptides. Compared with the original molecule of 300,000 daltons, they are roughly a hundred times smaller.
- Filtering and drying. The solution is filtered and spray-dried into a fine, white to pale yellow powder.
The result is called hydrolysed collagen, collagen hydrolysate or collagen peptides. Those are three names for the same thing: collagen cut into short chains. The powder has a neutral taste and dissolves in cold and hot drinks. How to use it is described in collagen powder in drinks and recipes.
Collagen, gelatine and collagen peptides: what is the difference?
In practice the three words are used interchangeably. This is the distinction:
| Collagen | Gelatine | Collagen peptides | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | The complete protein, three chains in a spiral | Partially broken-down collagen | Collagen cut into short pieces with enzymes |
| Molecular weight | About 300,000 daltons | Tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of daltons | 2,000 to 5,000 daltons |
| In cold water | Does not dissolve | Does not dissolve, swells and gels when cooling | Dissolves, does not gel |
| Where you find it | In animal tissue and in stock that has simmered for a long time | Gelatine sheets, sweets, desserts, capsules | Collagen powder |
Other words you come across on labels: bovine collagen is beef collagen, marine collagen is fish collagen, and hydrolysate means the same as hydrolysed. Branded ingredients such as VERISOL® and NATICOL® are collagen peptides from a producer that supplies its raw material and process under its own name.
Can you top up your collagen intake?
Collagen is found in ordinary food, especially in meat that is cooked for a long time, in fish with the skin on and in anything that contains gelatine. How much you get from that cannot be determined, because it is not on the packaging and it varies per piece and per preparation. Collagen powder is the form in which you know exactly how many grams you take: at Hūmen that is 5 grams per scoop, and we recommend 10 grams a day for twelve weeks and then 5 grams.
What happens in your body after that is the question everyone searches for and the one we as a seller say nothing about. No health claims have been approved for collagen in the EU, and a brand that makes a promise anyway is breaking the law. How those rules work is explained in what is a collagen brand actually allowed to promise. What you can check: which type, from which raw material, from which producer, how many grams per serving and what it costs per day. You will find that with our collagen powder.
What collagen is not
- Not a plant-based product. Collagen comes exclusively from animals. "Vegan collagen" is an umbrella term for something else.
- Not a cream. Collagen in a cream or mask falls under the cosmetics rules; collagen you eat is a food. Different laws, different claims, even though the same word is on the packaging.
- Not a miracle cure. Collagen powder is a food supplement. A supplement is not a substitute for a varied diet.
- Not a complete protein. It contains no tryptophan. Anyone counting collagen powder as a protein source is counting a one-sided protein.
What we don't say about it
No health claims for collagen have been approved in the European Union. We therefore make no statements about what collagen does in your body, including in this article. What we do tell you is what it is, where it comes from, how it is made and how to use it. That can be checked, and that is what we sell.
Frequently asked questions about collagen
What is collagen, in short?
Collagen is the most common structural protein in humans and animals. It consists of three twisted chains of amino acids, mainly glycine, proline and hydroxyproline, and it forms the fibres from which tissue is built.
What does collagen mean?
The word comes from the Greek kólla (glue) and -gen (producing): glue producer. Glue used to be made by boiling animal hides, during which collagen dissolved into gelatine.
Is collagen a protein?
Yes. Collagen is a protein that consists of about one third glycine, also contains a lot of proline and hydroxyproline, and contains no tryptophan. That makes it an incomplete protein, but it does count as protein on the label.
What is the difference between collagen and gelatine?
Gelatine is partially broken-down collagen: it does not dissolve in cold water and gels when it cools. Collagen peptides have been cut even further, do dissolve in cold water and do not gel. Collagen powder consists of collagen peptides.
Is collagen vegan?
No. Collagen only comes from animals. Products called vegan collagen contain plant proteins or individual amino acids, not collagen.
Which type of collagen is in collagen powder?
Almost always type 1, obtained from beef or fish, sometimes together with type 3. Type 2 comes from chicken and is sold separately, usually in capsules.
