What is whey protein?

A by-product of cheese making is sweet dairy whey. It sits at the top of the cheese making container and as crazy as it now sounds, it used to be thrown out.

In the early 1990s two ingenious entrepreneurs founded a small company and started selling this sweet dairy whey in powder form to bodybuilders. It took off. It was a win-win. The dairy industry found a new way of making money out of stuff they used to throw out and bodybuilders found a new source of protein which was far more superior to their egg and liver tablets.

And so started the whey protein revolution. There was however a problem. This sweet dairy whey was not ideal. It was full of lactose. It didn’t mix particularly well. It was not the best tasting product, it gave bad breath, gas and stuck to your dishes like glue.

Like any new industry, more companies joined in and started developing their own whey proteins. One of the better ones was Designer Whey which came up with a whey that was quite acceptable and came in a variety of nice-tasting flavours.

In the mid to late 1990s a small start-up company in the UK began to experiment with different ways of making sweet dairy whey more tailored to bodybuilders. This company was very different at the time in that it was British and not one of the new big emerging US supplements giants and was trying to develop whey which was more natural and better for overall vitality.

The new British company sought ways of improving the sweet dairy whey which was bottled by now in the hundreds of thousands and sold all over the world to bodybuilders - still with the less desirable side effects. In a way, bodybuilders didn’t care or know any better. All they knew was that this new whey revolution gave them a superior advantage over popping 100 liver capsules daily.

The British company worked with top raw ingredients suppliers, food scientists, flavour developers and regulatory bodies to create a new protein. In many ways this new protein shouldn’t have been called whey as it was so different from the whey at the time, that it just didn’t make sense to call it whey.

The new whey developed by the British company differed in the following ways:

1. It went through a new exclusive filtration method using ceramic filters to give the end user the purest whey with least amount of lactose. Later, this method became known as CFM with ionic exchange, now exclusively used for the most expensive proteins on the market.

2. It had the highest levels of whey concentrate which came with naturally high levels of growth factors and phospholipids such as Conjugated Linoleic Acid.

3. It had the highest levels of glutamate, known for increasing muscle mass.

4. Effort was made to keep potassium levels of this new whey high and sodium levels low. Bodybuilders using this new whey found it to be exceptional for getting rid of water retention, especially when it came time for contests.

The British company started out small and word soon spread. At that time, all US supplements companies were using artificial sweeteners and colours in their whey proteins. The British company which was founded on ethical grounds decided to include only natural flavours and colours. This made their whey more expensive but much better for health and vitality. At the time, it was frowned upon.

Fast forward to now. The British company, ironically is called LA Muscle and that new generation whey is called LA Whey Gold. The company is not so small any more and the product which they developed is probably still one of the best whey proteins you can buy.

You can still buy the cheaper sweet dairy whey without any of the all crucial modifications for £20 or £30 a tub from many other companies. However, if like many, you prefer the most up to date and highest quality whey protein, then LA Whey Gold is the natural choice.

LA Whey Gold is still the great innovative, cutting-edge protein supplement and now with a few modern twists with the addition of new Stevia as the only sweetener. Stevia replaces LA Whey Gold’s previous natural sweeteners and is even more natural and a healthier alternative.

LA Whey Gold will no doubt develop further with new technologies and new ingredients. For now, it is still considered the most advanced and effective whey protein for serious bodybuilders and sports-persons who demand a no-compromise product from a brand they trust.

Sports nutrition has come a long way since the early 1990s. One product has stood the test of time and that is whey protein. Whether you buy the very cheap ones or you have the budget to buy the best whey proteins, you will find results to be miles ahead of the alternatives available back then.