What a dramatic title, right? I read a lot of healthy living blogs along side the food policy ones and the craze for Greek yoghurt has been noticeable in the last couple of years. Who can blame consumers that discovered a protein-rich, (often) low-fat, creamy source of deliciousness?
Well, I just read an article that gives you a peek behind the curtains of how Greek yoghurt is produced, and the problems associated with it. Mainly – the millions of litres of acid whey produced.
Image by Jonathan Bliss, via Flickr CC.
Greek yoghurt gets its characteristic thickness from being strained after adding the yoghurt cultures, and what is left is a watery, acid liquid with a tiny bit of lactose and protein in it. What to do with all the whey? Dumping it into the environment is not an option – not only is it illegal, but its decomposition would lead to eutrophication and could kill water ecosystems.
Now, industry members are searching frantically for a way to get rid of this by-product for the lowest cost, including paying farmers to use it up – for example to mix it into silage or manure, and to try to extract the lactose and/or protein from it to make it into a profitable revenue source. There are even Yoghurt Summits to brainstorm how to deal with the issue. According to one of the producers present there,
“If we can figure out how to handle acid whey, we’ll become a hero.”
Check out the article here if you are interested! It’s really a fascinating reminder on how our food industry is interconnected, and that to understand it you need to know all processes related to the production of a certain good.
I had not even thought about that! Thanks for bringing it to my attention.
Interesting and thought provoking. But I think a key point in the Modern Farmer article is that producers/processors are looking for ways to make a profit from it (the acid whey). CNN did a good follow up to the original article on their eatocracy site.
Good point! Another issue I was thinking about is that Greek yoghurt as I understand it probably uses more milk per 1 cup of yoghurt than a normal one, so there is a resource use question as well. Plus the fact that some manufacturers make “Greek-style” yoghurt that has artificial thickeners added to create the same kind of texture but less waste. Then the question is – would you rather have the ‘wasteful’ pure product or the artificial equivalent? So many thoughts on an innocuous yoghurt!
I have heard of this issue before but I though that, in this case too, somehow turning all this whey into whey protein powder could be a useful solution.
However after reading the article that you posted a link for I understand that the problem is that Greek yogurt produces acid whey and that’s the problem. But a man interestingly wrote a comment to that same article and said he feeds the whey to his pigs and it helps their digestion!
So maybe it can be turned into something useful, it’s great how that other man produces electricity for his own far from it 🙂