A typical serving of homemade bone broth contains roughly 1,000 to 1,700 milligrams of glycine, though the actual amount varies widely depending on the recipe, cooking time, and type of bones used. That range comes from standardized preparations in lab settings. A concentrated, long-simmered broth from a restaurant or dedicated home cook can deliver significantly more, potentially 4,000 to 9,000 milligrams per serving.
Glycine by Broth Type
Beef and chicken bone broth don’t deliver identical amounts of glycine. In lab analysis of standardized homemade broths, beef bone broth came in higher, at roughly 1,600 to 1,700 mg of glycine per serving. Chicken bone broth landed lower, around 1,000 to 1,100 mg per serving. These numbers reflect broths made to a consistent recipe under controlled conditions.
At the molecular level, chicken broth actually contains slightly more glycine per gram of liquid (about 4.1 mg per gram versus 3.7 mg per gram for beef). But because beef broth tends to be denser and more gelatin-rich overall, the per-serving totals for beef end up higher in most preparations.
Adding vinegar to the cooking water, a common tip for “extracting more nutrients from the bones,” didn’t reliably increase glycine content in lab testing. In some cases, vinegar-added broths actually had slightly lower amino acid levels than their plain counterparts.
Store-Bought vs. Homemade
Commercial bone broths consistently tested lower in glycine than homemade versions. A study published in the International Journal of Sport Nutrition and Exercise Metabolism found that store-bought liquid beef broth contained around 830 to 880 mg of glycine per serving, roughly half of what a homemade beef broth delivered. Store-bought chicken broth was even lower, at 685 to 783 mg. Dehydrated broth powders performed worst of all, with glycine levels dropping to 430 to 530 mg per prepared serving.
The gap makes sense. Commercial products are often diluted, processed for shelf stability, and made with less bone material relative to water. If glycine content matters to you, homemade broth is the better bet, or at least a brand that visibly gels when refrigerated (a sign of higher collagen and amino acid content).
How Cooking Method Changes the Numbers
The biggest variable isn’t the type of bones. It’s how the broth is made. A café-prepared beef bone broth that was long-simmered and concentrated delivered between 4,900 and 9,450 mg of glycine per serving in the same study. That’s three to six times more than the standardized homemade version, and up to ten times more than store-bought.
The factors that push glycine content higher include longer cooking times (24 hours or more), a higher ratio of bones to water, using joint-heavy cuts like knuckles and feet (which are rich in collagen), and reducing the broth by simmering off water at the end. Collagen is roughly one-third glycine by weight, so anything that extracts more collagen into the liquid raises glycine levels proportionally.
How This Compares to Supplement Doses
Most clinical research on glycine uses doses of about 3 grams (3,000 mg) daily, with studies running up to 24 weeks at that level. Doses up to 6 grams daily have been used safely for shorter periods. Sleep studies often use 3 grams taken before bed.
A standard cup of homemade bone broth, at roughly 1,000 to 1,700 mg, gets you about a third to half of that clinical dose. A richly concentrated, long-cooked broth could match or exceed it. A cup of store-bought broth from a carton gets you less than a third. To consistently hit 3,000 mg of glycine from bone broth alone, you’d likely need two to three cups of a good homemade version daily, or one cup of a very concentrated preparation.
For comparison, collagen supplements and powdered gelatin deliver around 3,200 to 3,800 mg of glycine per standard dose (typically 20 grams of powder). They’re more predictable than broth, which varies batch to batch. But broth provides glycine alongside other amino acids like proline and hydroxyproline, plus minerals and gelatin, which some people prefer over isolated supplements.
Getting More Glycine From Your Broth
If you’re making bone broth partly for its glycine content, a few adjustments make a real difference. Use collagen-rich bones: chicken feet, pig’s feet, beef knuckles, and oxtails all contain more connective tissue than simple marrow bones. One lab test showed that marrow-bone-only beef broth yielded about 1,500 mg of glycine per serving, on the lower end of the homemade range.
Cook longer. Most recipes call for 12 to 24 hours for beef bones, 8 to 12 for chicken. Longer simmering extracts more collagen. After straining, you can reduce the broth on the stove to concentrate it further. A broth that sets into a firm jelly when chilled is a good visual indicator that you’ve extracted a meaningful amount of collagen, and with it, glycine.
Keep the ratio of bones to water high. More bones and less water means a more concentrated final product. A loose guideline is to pack bones tightly into your pot and add just enough water to cover them by an inch or two.