Best Brand Gelatin 2019?

Whichway?

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Is Great Lakes brand still considered the best and cleanest?

What about the difference (if any) between the ordinary gelatin and hydrolysed gelatin? I’ve read of some concerns over left over chemical residues in the hydrolysed version?

What does everyone recommend in 2019?
 

Orion3821

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Is Great Lakes brand still considered the best and cleanest?

What about the difference (if any) between the ordinary gelatin and hydrolysed gelatin? I’ve read of some concerns over left over chemical residues in the hydrolysed version?

What does everyone recommend in 2019?
Peat recommends the Great Lakes gelatin
edit: My bad didn't mean to repeat the obvious but that seems to be the brand everyone likes the most
 

DrJ

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I tried the Aspen brand grass fed gelatin and thought the quality was excellent. It is a good bit cheaper than great lakes, which is definitely going up in price as it increases in popularity. About 10% more expensive than when I first started buying it. Aspen comes in a bag, but I prefer the canisters great lakes comes in for ease of use. That's the main downside, but minor.
 

managing

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"hydrolised" or "hydrolyzed" literally means that it has been exposed to sodium hydroxide. Its essentially the same as nixtimalization. There would be nothing at all dangerous about being exposed to tiny residues of this. In fact, they would probably be salts of sodium.

Now, for the "if" statements.

However, NaOH is very caustic in its raw form. You will almost certainly not get any of this from hydrolized gelatin. But just throwing it out there.

Also, there is the question of how pure is the NaOH that is used? Its a pretty easy thing to isolate chemically, so probably pretty pure. But always something to wonder aobut with chemical processing.

And finally, are they in fact using NaOH and only NaOH? So far as I know "hydrolization" is not a regulated term.
 

cdg

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I tried the Aspen brand grass fed gelatin and thought the quality was excellent. It is a good bit cheaper than great lakes, which is definitely going up in price as it increases in popularity. About 10% more expensive than when I first started buying it. Aspen comes in a bag, but I prefer the canisters great lakes comes in for ease of use. That's the main downside, but minor.

Well if you buy Great Lakes in box of 12 then it is still much cheaper
 

LiveWire

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Is Great Lakes brand still considered the best and cleanest?

What about the difference (if any) between the ordinary gelatin and hydrolysed gelatin? I’ve read of some concerns over left over chemical residues in the hydrolysed version?

What does everyone recommend in 2019?

I don’t understand where this notion of Great Lakes being the best comes from.

Firstly it is a US company, and if it sources from US producers, it is automatically inferior to say European beef products, where the safety standards are far better, hormone use prohibited and livestock living conditions mostly far superior.

Secondly, and I’m guessing here, but does anyone know for sure Great Lakes are an actual manufacturer? With an actual manufacturing facility? I’ve tried to look it up but to no avail. Their corporate address on google maps looks like a warehouse, certainly not a gelatin manufacturing plant that requires reactors and other complex technology.

The vast majority of gelatin/collagen brands, in fact the vast majority of any powder stuff, are just packaging plants at most, and many are just resellers. They all buy bulk from a fairly limited number of actual manufacturers and sell under their brand. In which case any debate on the ‘quality’ of a brand is a pretty moot point.
 
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Jib

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I like buying in bulk so I can throw it in one of those gamma-seal airtight buckets for storage.

Great Lakes used to have a 10lb bag that they reduced to 8lb. Sucks. Was cheaper and lasted longer, must just be a profit thing. I have not been able to find any other sources that are cheaper than Great Lakes in the bulk pricing.

I did try one from eBay at one point. It was fine, but I noticed it had a much harder time fully dissolving, and it also would raise clouds of the stuff everywhere when I scooped it out, like it was fine chalk or something. It was obviously collagen but the consistency seemed much, much finer and it was very annoying to not be able to supplement with it without creating clouds of the stuff everywhere that would settle into gelatin all over the floor and countertops. Very strange. You'd open the bag and it would just fly out everywhere like dust.

Never had that happen with Great Lakes. I'm not married to that brand but they seem to be dominating the market for it, and I am not aware of any other places to get 8lbs or more at a time.
 
OP
W

Whichway?

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I don’t understand where this notion of Great Lakes being the best comes from.

Firstly it is a US company, and if it sources from US producers, it is automatically inferior to say European beef products, where the safety standards are far better, hormone use prohibited and livestock living conditions mostly far superior.

Secondly, and I’m guessing here, but does anyone know for sure Great Lakes are an actual manufacturer? With an actual manufacturing facility? I’ve tried to look it up but to no avail. Their corporate address on google maps looks like a warehouse, certainly not a gelatin manufacturing plant that requires reactors and other complex technology.

The vast majority of gelatin/collagen brands, in fact the vast majority of any powder stuff, are just packaging plants at most, and many are just resellers. They all buy bulk from a fairly limited number of actual manufacturers and sell under their brand. In which case any debate on the ‘quality’ of a brand is a pretty moot point.

There is one company in Australia now which sources its Gelatin from Germany, which it claims is grass fed, hormone free and vet approved. As you note, they like many other brands simply re-package.

I thought New Zealand might manufacture gelatin as they have very clean green pastures, but I guess there is not the level of beef production there necessary for large scale gelatin production.

Don't know which other world countries would have clean pastures and good manufacturing practices?
 

Luk3

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I’ve been using the Great Lakes Bone Collagen lately, as I’m concerned about potential endotoxin in the normal skin gelatin. It’s expensive, mind.
 

Carrum

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There is one company in Australia now which sources its Gelatin from Germany, which it claims is grass fed, hormone free and vet approved. As you note, they like many other brands simply re-package.
Is that Zint?
 

Carrum

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I don’t understand where this notion of Great Lakes being the best comes from.

Firstly it is a US company, and if it sources from US producers, it is automatically inferior to say European beef products, where the safety standards are far better, hormone use prohibited and livestock living conditions mostly far superior.
It's easy enough to find out where it comes from by going to the website.
Great Lakes Gelatin’s collagen and gelatin products are sourced from cattle in Argentina and Brazil. They are pasture-raised and grass-fed based on the standards of the American Grassfed Association and animal welfare guidelines. Being forage based eliminates the potential use of growth hormones, antibiotics, and steroids, which follows the Food and Agricultural Legislation in Argentina and Brazil.
Faqs
 

LiveWire

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That proves they are just a reseller. And their claims are vague and abstract, they identify the continent and that’s that.

You can claim the gelatin supply from another continent you resell has pastured origin, and maybe even believe it, but there’s no way you can control it. Being in the position of a reseller you’re entirely reliant on the honesty of your supply chain. In today’s world, it doesn’t pay off to be honest. How would Great Lakes know they aren’t being sold Chinese gelatin?

I don’t mean to disparage Great Lakes, just to be clear. I’m just surprised by the amount of faith people seem to have towards it that doesn’t seem to have a factual foundation.

If you buy a European gelatin (manufactured in Europe) you know you’re getting gelatin from European cows, because it is inefficient to transport dead carcasses. If you buy gelatin from a US reseller who buys from Brazilians, you have no idea where that gelatin comes from.
 

cdg

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That proves they are just a reseller. And their claims are vague and abstract, they identify the continent and that’s that.

You can claim the gelatin supply from another continent you resell has pastured origin, and maybe even believe it, but there’s no way you can control it. Being in the position of a reseller you’re entirely reliant on the honesty of your supply chain. In today’s world, it doesn’t pay off to be honest. How would Great Lakes know they aren’t being sold Chinese gelatin?

I don’t mean to disparage Great Lakes, just to be clear. I’m just surprised by the amount of faith people seem to have towards it that doesn’t seem to have a factual foundation.

If you buy a European gelatin (manufactured in Europe) you know you’re getting gelatin from European cows, because it is inefficient to transport dead carcasses. If you buy gelatin from a US reseller who buys from Brazilians, you have no idea where that gelatin comes from.

European cows are fed GMO grains unless they are organic.
 

Carrum

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How would Great Lakes know they aren’t being sold Chinese gelatin?

I don’t mean to disparage Great Lakes, just to be clear. I’m just surprised by the amount of faith people seem to have towards it that doesn’t seem to have a factual foundation.

If you buy a European gelatin (manufactured in Europe) you know you’re getting gelatin from European cows, because it is inefficient to transport dead carcasses. If you buy gelatin from a US reseller who buys from Brazilians, you have no idea where that gelatin comes from.
If an American seller is buying from Brazilians who are getting the gelatin from China (as in your example) then how come a European seller couldn't also be buying Chinese gelatin?
 

LiveWire

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They sure could. I’m not disputing that at all. The only way that increases certainty is when you know who the manufacturer is. In which case the EU-made gelatin would likely fare better than the US-made one.

My main point though was to point out the blind faith people have towards the Great Lakes brand.
 

postman

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The Great Lakes fanboyism is ridiculous.

European cows are fed GMO grains unless they are organic.
Depends on where in Europe it's from, many European countries have banned GMOs.
 

cdg

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The Great Lakes fanboyism is ridiculous.


Depends on where in Europe it's from, many European countries have banned GMOs.
Yes they have banned them for food not for animals. That was the comprimize they made when the pressure was on to get GMO's in.
 

postman

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Yes they have banned them for food not for animals. That was the comprimize they made when the pressure was on to get GMO's in.
It's banned as an animal food in some European countries.
 

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