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Whey Is Just a Remarketed Garbage Byproduct
So what is modern whey? It’s a byproduct of the cheese industry that until 1971 they would just throw away. A cheese manufacturer processes approximately 10 pounds of milk (5 quarts) into a single pound of cheese.
Clearly there is a lot of waste in this process.
And that’s what “whey” is. It is the cast-off waste from cheese.
There is no single “whey protein” – it is a complex of all sorts of stuff that was left over from the cheese process. There are hormones, cholesterol, fat, bioactive peptides, enzymes, and globular proteins from cow blood.
In the 1970s, a very clever man with a cheese business named Frank Thomas realized he could repackage this waste product into a “nutritional product,” turning his garbage into revenue. Lots and lots of revenue.
And the whey protein industry was born.”