I love Dr. Gabrielle Lyons, but I don’t agree collagen has a protein score of zero.
Yes, I understand why she says this because it’s lacking an essential amino acid: tryptophan.
But here’s the good news, you can easily make an incomplete protein into a complete protein by consuming foods that contain the missing amino acid(s) at any point in the day—that’s right it doesn’t even have to be at the same meal! Quite similar to vegetarian and vegan diets too.
So if your diet includes: oats, cheese, milk, tuna, turkey, salmon, chickpeas, seeds, nuts (so many more!), which most general diets do, you are covered.
And this is why I count collagen! Grab your bone broth: Cheers!
While, I absolutely love Dr. Gabrielle Lyons, I do consider collagen to be a good source of protein. So it is an incomplete protein because it’s missing an essential amino acid which is tryptophan, important for mood regulation, recovery sleep melatonin production. However, the way to deal with foods that are incomplete proteins is to make sure that you’re eating foods that contain the missing essential amino acids at some point during the day. It doesn’t have to be the same. So foods that are high in tryptophan include things that you’re likely eating like oats, cheese, milk, tuna, turkey…so many different foods that are part of a regular diet. So if you eat all of the essential amino acids throughout the day, you get complete proteins. This is why I still think that you should consume collagen and why don’t think that it is considered a zero.