Adding collagen to your coffee

Adding collagen to your coffee

More and more people are taking collagen. Its potential benefits include counteracting the loss of skin elasticity and hydration that comes with ageing, helping to relieve joint pain, and preventing bone loss. As the number of people taking collagen supplements increases, so do the ways in which they take it. A rising trend is to mix premium liquid collagen with coffee. But does this work?

Because collagen has quite a neutral taste, unflavoured supplements can be added to food and drinks without significantly altering their flavour.

Does heat affect the potency of collagen?

If you add collagen to a hot beverage such as coffee, you might be worried about what effect the heat has. Generally speaking, when exposed to high temperatures, proteins can get denatured as their structure alters slightly.

Collagen peptides are normally made by using solutions based on acids or alkaline to separate the collagen from animal hides. After this, the hides are then soaked in heated water to extract the maximum amount of collagen peptides. The water is heated to 190ºF, which translates to 88ºC.

In other words, collagen supplements currently on sale have already been denatured a little as this process helps your digestive tract to absorb the supplement. However, this doesn't significantly detract from the potency of the peptides. But, if the proteins are subjected to higher temperatures, it could result in further degradation that would render them ineffective.

The temperatures at which collagen becomes ineffective

But, what do we mean when we talk about higher temperatures? One piece of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21723833">research</a> carried out by the National Centre for Biotechnology Information found that degradation happens at around 302ºF or 150ºC. Most people brew their coffee in temperature ranges of 195–205ºF or 90–96ºC.

Good news for coffee lovers

Therefore, as long as you add your collagen supplement to coffee or tea when it is below 302ºF /150ºC, it shouldn’t be affected. So, if you are a coffee lover, adding collagen to your beloved drink is a great way of making sure you get what your body needs to help keep your skin healthy.