—Lancaster Farming. Saturday, March 17. 1973
26
Whey Seen Source
Suppose you could make soft
drinks nutritious as well as
refreshing without appreciably
increasing their cost or lowering
their taste appeal. Suppose
further that this added nutrition
was in the form of protein
isolated from whey, a byproduct
of cheese manufactured, which is
now largely wasted and could
seriously pollute our streams.
Sounds like a way to combat
malnutrition—especially among
the young, “chip-and-soda” set—
and help avoid pollution at the
same time, doesn’t it 9
Chemist Virginia H Holsinger,
Linda P Posati, E. David
DeVilbiss, and Michael J.
Pallansch, of the Agricultural
Research Service, Dairy
Products Laboratory,
Washington, D C , have achieved
some encouraging success in
adding proteins isolated from
cottage cheese whey to car
bonated and noncarbonated
beverages
This research opens new
possibilities for the nutritional
fortification of widely used snack
beverages if the whey products
can be concentrated com
mercially at a reasonable price.
Whey contains proteins and
other nutritious elements in
highly dilute form It is produced
in prodigious quantities—9
pounds of liquid whey for every
pound of cheese made—-which
adds up to 1 5 billion pounds of
whey solids a year In spite of
whey’s potential value, not
nearly enough applications have
been found to use it all
Also prodigious is the
production of soft drinks in the
United States—almost 75 billion
8-ounce bottles every year.
That’s enough for about a bottle a
day for every man, woman, and
child Children and teenages, of
course, drink more than their
share of these beverages To the
extent that they pass up milk and
fruit imces for soft drinks, they
.ire replacing dietary nutrients,
such as calcium and protein, with
“empty” calories
If soft drinks are so popular,
(he ARS researchers reasoned,
why not fortify them with
nutritious protein 7 The cottage
cheese whey proteins are well
suited for this, since their slightly
acid taste enhances the tangy
flavor of most soft drinks
Besides, this acid whey has been
used less than the sweet whey
from other cheeses because of
special problems encountered in
processing and drying the cot-
Keeping Young
People on Form
Big Challenge
Unless ways are found to
make farming a profitable
enough career to attract
competent young people, the
nation is headed for trouble
This was pointed out re
cently by Agriculture Sec
retary Earl Butz in an ad
dress to the National Cotton
Council
He noted that the average
age of today’s farmer is be
tween 51 and 52
“It will take 20 years to
correct this deficiency,” the
Secretary warned, “and un
less we move on this prob
lem quickly, our country is
going to be in trouble as far
as food and fiber are con
cerned ”
Food Costs Less In
Proportion
Food costs today actually
take a smaller percentage of
consumer income than they
did 20 years ago Only 1691
of disposable income m the
US is now spent for food
as compared to 2391 two
decades ago In addition, to
day’s food is of better quality,
wider diversity, and safer
than that anywhere else in
the world
tage cheese byproduct.
In isolating the protein from
cottage cheese whey, ARS,
scientists used two filtration
processes to remove the salts and
most of the lactose, or milk
sugar, which represents about 65
percent of the solids in cottage
cheese whey. When the resulting
protein solution was condensed
and dried, - it contained over 80
percent protein and only about 10
percent lactose.
Several flavors of soft drinks
of Protein Soft Drinks
were fortified with 2.3 grams of
whey protein per 8-ounce bottle.
After storage at room tem
perature for a year, the fortified
carbonated beverages retained
excellent clarity and color. For
the first 200 days the flavor also
remained unchanged, although a
slight whey taste could be
detected at the end of the year.
These are excellent keeping
properties, since 90 percent of all
carbonated beverages are sold
within 30 days of bottling.
Whey protein was also in
corporated at the ARS Dairy
Products Laboratory into seven
flavors of the popular “ade”
drinks that are sold as powder to
be mixed with water at home.
These beverages, when recon
GROFF BROS. PROVE
That Ortho's HYPA
Program Works
Carl and Jim Groff of Kirkwood, Pa. used an Ortho
HYPA (High Precision Agriculture) Program last year
on 80 acres of corn.
They plowed down 500 pounds per acre of am
monium nitrate. At planting time they used 300 pounds
per acre of Ortho Umpel Starter Special 13-34-10,
which was placed 2 x 2 by the seed.
The corn grew rapidly throughout the season and
when harvest time came the corn yielded 175 bushels
ner acre. They then used the corn to feed their 225
head of cattle
Carl and Jim remarked to the Ortho agronomist that
their Ortho HYPA Program cut their cost by 20
percent and increased their yield 20 percent.
Their Ortho dealer is P. L Rohrer & Bro., Inc.,
Smoketown, Pa. See your Ortho Dealer right now for a
HYPA Green and Easy program designed especially for
you.
stituted, contained 0.5 or 1.0
percent protein. They were
submitted, along with controls
containing no protein, to a taste
panel of experienced dairy
product judges. The judges could
detect the whey proteins, even at
0.5 percent level, but none of
them thought that the taste was
objectionable. In general, the
citrus-flavored fortified drinks
scored better in taste than those
with noncitrus fruit flavors.