Your great-grandmother roasted a chicken on a Sunday.
She didn't just eat the breast. She made stock from the carcass. She spread the liver on toast. The skin, the cartilage, the feet - all of it ended up in a pot.
She was eating nose-to-tail. She just didn't call it that.
Today we eat the muscle. The rest goes in the bin.
That's left most modern diets short on one specific amino acid - and oversupplied with another. The imbalance has a real cost.
Here's the science, and the simple fix.
Methionine is one of nine essential amino acids. Your body can't make it. You get it from food — most concentrated in muscle meat, eggs and dairy.
In normal amounts it's vital. It supports protein synthesis, methylation, and detoxification.
In excess, without its counterweights, the metabolic cost goes up.
But nobody actually wants to eat less steak. So the question becomes: what balances it?
Glycine is found almost entirely in the parts of the animal we've stopped eating.
• Collagen — the connective tissue in meat
• Gelatin — what collagen becomes when slow-cooked
• Bone broth
• Skin: chicken, fish, pork crackling
• Slow-cooked cuts: shank, oxtail, chuck, brisket
Collagen contains roughly 25 times more glycine than methionine. Muscle meat? Closer to 1:1, methionine-favoured.
In other words: every steak without collagen alongside it tilts the ratio further the wrong way.
Glycine is one of three building blocks of glutathione — your body's master antioxidant. It's needed for Phase II liver detoxification. And it makes up roughly one-third of every collagen molecule in your body.
When glycine runs short, several things happen quietly:
• Glutathione production has less to work with
• Excess methionine is harder to clear
• Your body has fewer of the building blocks it uses for collagen formation
Researchers estimate the modern diet falls short of optimal glycine intake by around 10g a day. That's roughly the amount in a heaping scoop of collagen.
You don't need to eat less steak. You need to eat it the way it was designed to be eaten — alongside its counterweight.
Eat muscle meat. Match it with collagen.
In practice:
• A scoop of collagen in your morning coffee
• Bone broth before or with dinner
• Sardines with the skin and bones still on
• Slow-cooked cuts on rotation, not just lean fillets
• Skin on your chicken, salmon and pork
Roughly 1g of collagen for every 10g of muscle protein is a reasonable rule of thumb. For most people, a daily scoop covers it.
Your body's natural collagen production starts to slow from your mid-twenties. By your fifties, the difference is significant.
Most people are still eating the same lean-protein, low-collagen diet they ate at 25 — and getting different results.
Thinner skin. Less elastic joints. Hair that doesn't grow the way it used to.
It's not just hormones. It's not just time. It's a dietary imbalance that compounds, year on year.
Eating only muscle meat is metabolic debt.
Your great-grandmother ate the whole animal because she had to. Quietly, it kept her amino acid balance right.
You get to do the modern equivalent: a steak, and a scoop of collagen. A roast, and a mug of broth. A tin of sardines for the skin and bones.
This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. The information contained herein is not a substitute for and should never be relied upon for professional medical advice. Always talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of any treatment. Learn more about our editorial standards here.
* These findings are based on a February 2026 survey of 770 genuine Collagen Restore™ customers, reflecting their own authentic experiences and personal views.
