The Importance Of Glycine And Bone Broth

If you've been following our blog posts for a while, you'll know that we have talked at length about the importance of collagen. It’s one of the most abundant structural proteins in the body and a key component in connective tissue. Just to refresh you, connective tissue is what gives structure to our bones, cartilage, skin, blood vessels, organs, muscles and lots more. We don’t need to explain further as to why collagen is so important.

In order for our body to produce collagen, it requires a number of amino acids such as lysine, proline and the most important one being glycine. Glycine accounts for a whopping one-third of the amino acids that make-up collagen. Aside from glycine being a key structural component of collagen, it also plays a significant role in metabolic processes such as detoxification, muscle growth and the regulation of neurotransmitters (affecting our mood). 

Given that glycine is so essential to our body, we are able to synthesise it from another amino acid called serine. However it’s estimated that through this process we only produce 3 grams per day yet for basic function we require 10g of glycine per day. For this reason it’s super important that we obtain additional amounts of glycine through our diet. 

One of the beautiful things about bone broth is that it contains approximately 27 grams of glycine per 100 grams of protein. Therefore bone broth is a wonderful natural food source of glycine, helping you to obtain your daily requirements.

Other great dietary sources of glycine include animal proteins such as fish, meat and dairy. Good plant based sources includes beans, spinach, kale, cauliflower, cabbage, pumpkin, banana and kiwi fruit.