Whey to go

There is quite a bit of confusion regarding this immensely popular protein – mostly due to crappy adverts from supplement companies. The imagery that comes to our mind is bodybuilding pros with veins popping out their a&&es making us normal folks scamper for cover. But the truth is far from that.

Whey is derived from milk. It is simply a mix of multiple protein sub-fractions and peptides found in milk in small proportions (20% of milk proteins is Whey, the rest Casein). Seen the clear liquid floating on top of your homemade dahi? Yup, that’s rich whey liquid. Ever dumped the clear liquid after straining your milk for solids? That’s whey too, down the drain.

To effectively extract this protein and get it out into powder form needs a bit of processing. What used to be a complex process decades ago in terms of filtering these out is fairly advanced now. And with that we have started seeing a lot more of high quality concentrates and isolates out in the market.

Whey has the best numbers by its side to support. It has the highest PDCAAS score (Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score) which is essentially a measure of protein digestibility by our body and the ability of the protein to supply the vital amino acids required.  Whey also has the highest amount of BCAAs (Branched Chain Amino Acids) that play a vital role in lean muscle repair/building post your workout.  The ability to satiate the appetite for longer and stimulation of fatty acid oxidation (by the amino acid Leucine present in Whey) helps in dropping body fat percentage as well.

Another important factor is the bio-availability of whey protein. Our body is capable of absorbing protein from certain sources better. Based on this capability and the amino acid profile of the protein, the bio-availability index is drawn. We pilfered this table from a bodybuilding.com nutrition article.

So your objective be putting on some lean muscle or shedding a percentage or two of body fat, whey protein will lend you a hand. And of course with the assumption that you have a fitness regimen in place to go with it.