Tryptophan Lower In Traditional Diets

Tryptophan, serotonin, and aging:

In the traditional diet, rather than just eating muscle meats, all the animal parts were used. Since collagen makes up about 50% of the protein in an animal, and is free of tryptophan, this means that people were getting about half as much tryptophan in proportion to other amino acids when they used foods such as “head cheese,” ox-tails, and chicken feet.

People who ate traditional diets, besides getting a lower concentration of tryptophan, were getting a large amount of glycine in their gelatin-rich diet. The simplest, nonessential, amino acid, glycine, has been found to protect against carcinogenesis, inflammation, fibrosis, neurological damage, shock, asthma, and hypertension. Increased glycine improves learning.