Why don't we do a Whey Protein 101? Everybody knows how important it is especially if you're taking supplements. But we want to know, what are we actually getting when we take it, and there's so many different variations. If we can put together a video here to help break that down, then I thought it could be helpful.
So, I want to get to some sort of
vision. First of all, what is Whey Protein? If we look at milk, it's got 2 main
components. It's got curds and whey. Whey is the liquid portion. In that liquid
portion we have not just protein, but protein, carbohydrates, fats, vitamins, and
minerals.
All that we have when we talk about
the different kinds of whey protein are basically different stages in
preparation of that protein to the point at which it gets to you. So, if we
think about it, it's a 3 step process here, or 3 or 4 step process. And where
the manufacturer intervenes and puts it in a bottle is really what you're
getting.
So, when you look at whey
concentrate, it's the first step. It's basically taking that separated out whey
and filtering out the main impurities. And then giving you the rest of it. The
thing is, that could be 35-80% protein by weight. That is a big variation,
guys, between how much protein is actually in an amount of powder.
So, if you're looking at 20 grams of
powder, and it's only 50% by weight, you're only getting 10 active grams of
protein in a concentrate. Luckily, some manufacturers will steer towards the
high end.
We use 80% in our concentrate so
that for every 10 grams of the protein by volume, you're getting 8 active grams
of the protein when we use our concentrate. Again, we'll use mostly isolate in
all of our proteins, but just to point that out. This is also going to have a
higher concentration of lactose in it. Again, less treatment, less purification
process, more lactose. So, if you are a lactose-intolerant person, if you buy a whey
concentrate, you're going to find that you have a lot more gut issues having
that than you would somewhere along the way down here. We'll talk about these
in a second, and it's going to retain a high percentage of the important subfractions.
We know that whey protein is important as an immune-boosting agent. Well, a lot
of those important boosting properties come from the subfractions like
lactoferrin that are in whey protein. Those are going to be again, untouched
for the most part in whey concentrate. So you're going to have good
immune-boosting effects from concentrate. The best, actually. And then finally,
this is absorbed a little bit slower, again, because you have other components
in here. You are going to have some fat. You are going to have some
carbohydrates. That's going to delay the gastric emptying of a concentrate
versus an isolyte when you compare them side-by-side.
Next, let's move into that next
step. So now, if we treat that, we take that concentrate and we treat it a
little bit more, then we have more benefits and sometimes more things that we
don't like about it. That's isolate here.
This now is at least 90%
protein by weight,
ok. So, in order to have that for every 10 grams, you have to at least be
delivering 9 active grams of protein. And again, we score off the charts here. There
are far less issues with lactose intolerance here. Why? Because almost all the
lactose is removed when you go through that additional purification step of an
isolate. It may destroy immune-boosting subfractions like lactoferrin because
now, the more we treat it, the more that we start to break down some of those
other components. Because as we break down the protein into smaller and smaller
peptides. I say may because we're going to talk about, lastly, the difference
ways in which whey protein isolate is prepared. But before we do, I'll talk
about one other version here, and it is another way that it's covered, and
that's hydrolysate protein, ok, which is just basically hydrolyzed
protein.
You've seen it on labels probably
before. Some people will say this is the end of all, be all of protein. I kind
of don't agree. What you're dealing with here is yes, the fastest absorbing
form of protein because it is so broken down. It's broken down to all its
individual peptides. It actually kills all the what we call quaternary structures
of protein.
But those are the
lactoferrin and immune-boosting subfractions. So, you're completely destroying those
when you do this. And it was actually done because they wanted to take out any
of the things that could be potentially allergenic.
So, these immune-boosting fractions are also very highly acted upon by
our body in some cases when they see them as an allergen, so you can have an
allergic reaction to them. Now we're getting rid of, to make baby formula,
that's how this was all sort of created in the first place, and it's going to
taste awful. Because the amino acids, once they're completely free from the
rest of their protein chains, are bad. We've talked about it before. The branch
chain amino acids, when you break them down to individual components, things
like leucine taste God-awful. And proline tastes God-awful. And they're just
floating around in here so when you go to eat this, it's going to taste like crap.
The bottom line is
before we talk about these last two things here is, you got to understand, guys,
that the way that these are broken down, they're talking about, you know, is it
denaturing the proteins? We're going to eventually, whether these are broken
down when they come in a bottle, or whether they're broken down in your gut,
your body is going to break these things down eventually into their individual
components.
So, the argument some
people will make about denaturing proteins, guys, when you take a thing of egg
whites and you pour it into a hot pan, to make your scrambled eggs, you are
denaturing that protein. The thing is, you're not changing the muscle-building
properties of the protein when you do that. You're not changing the
muscle-building properties. It can still have a benefit or you would never be
finding any benefits from eating cooked proteins.
You'd be eating
everything raw. So, don't confuse that. It's really these other steps that
really determines whether or not one is more right for you or not. So, of the
isolate, there's 2 things that we see most often. A cross-flow microfiltration,
and an ion exchange preparation. With the ion exchange preparation, guys, these
are usually treated with chemicals like hydrochloric acid and other agents
basically do the splitting. They're lysing. They're splitting these proteins
into individual components. That's not ideal, ok.
I don't really need to
have foreign chemicals introduced into here to do the breaking down for us. We're
going to have that in our own body, in our own gut. We have our own acids to do
that. Cross microfiltration is a process that uses cold temperatures to split
the fractions into their parts. This, again, if you want to go down the road of
not denaturing your protein, this is what this is.
High end cross flow
microfiltration will not denature the proteins because it won't expose them to
heat. Other processes that I haven't even covered here will expose them to high
heat, and thatcould break down the proteins. But again, it breaks down the proteins and causes a breakdown of a lot of these other important
fractions like I talked about like lactoferrin. That will be why you would want
to eliminate the chemical and the high heat conditions. But from a standpoint
of the value of the protein itself, it's still going to have a high value in
terms of building muscle.
But I like to think,
again, with ATHLEANX, it's not just about building muscle. It's about creating
a whole better you. Well, that's why we want to worry about the benefits that
we do want to preserve here of the immune-boosting.
So, ion exchange, again,
cross flow microfiltration is the way that the isolate is further prepared.Same
thing with the hydrolyzed protein. All in all, what does that mean to you guys?
It should just mean that when you're looking for your protein, determine what
it is you're looking for. If you have a lactose intolerance, you got to start
looking right here at the isolate. If you're not lactose-intolerant, you
probably could get away with the concentrate. You're going to have really good
immune-boosting effects.
Again, me, I like the
combination of the speed of entry of isolate. I like the fact that we can
prepare it with a cold process across from microfiltration to get you guys the
highest quality and purity in the protein. And I like the fact that again, it
has all of these important immune-boosting agents in tact as well.
So, that, guys, if you
haven't already tried, is how we develop our ATHLEANRX Supplements. We choose
the highest quality proteins. We choose the highest quality ingredients. We get
you guys none of the fluff, none of the filler, none of that crap to make sure that
the stuff that we deliver to you at the end of the day is the best product that
you could possibly use.
In the meantime, if you
found this article and this 101 helpful, make sure you leave a thumb's up below
and some comments. And if you want me to continue to do more of this nutritional
breakdown, I'm happy to do it. Just let me know what it is you want me to
cover.
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