The Benefits of Whey in your Diet

The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates advised to “drink whey for long life and good health.” Since it is correct to assume we have more in common with our mother than Daisy the Cow, it is to our benefit to look at the basic differences between bovine milk and mother’s milk. Human milk in simple terms is about 60-80% whey and 20-40% caseins. Cow’s milk is about 80% caseins and 20% whey. 



Caseins are made up of phospho-proteins – the curd portion of milk that is used to make cheese. Calcium caseinate is also used in glues, plastic, and latex paint. As in the nursery rhyme “Little Miss Muffet,” there are two primary parts of milk, curds and whey. Curds contain histamines and are the predominant reason for milk allergies (not lactose intolerance). Common allergies to caseins (histamines) in cow’s milk include mucous, congestion, runny nose and eyes, ear infections, skin rashes and hyperactivity. These insoluble caseins are the hardest part of bovine milk for humans to digest as well. Once aged and combined with the enzymes in cheeses, these caseins become a little easier to digest, but still can produce the same symptoms as liquid milk. 



Sammi’s Best Whey & Rice is a whey based milk alternative that is formulated to be more appropriate for human digestion and nutritional needs. It uses organic raw cane sugar, complex rice syrup and corn syrup solids (no relation to HFCS) to replace most of the lactose (milk sugar). Non-hydrogenated coconut oil (essential medium chain fatty acids like in mother’s milk), replaces the butter fat so the cholesterol is removed. More useable calcium replaces the calcium caseinate, and critical vitamins are added. It is naturally flavored to have a clean fresh dairy taste and contains live probiotic cultures like those found in raw milk and mother’s milk. All-in-all it has a

number of distinct digestive and nutritional advantages over cow’s milk because we use mother’s milk as the comparison standard. 



Milk is homogenized to increase shelf life and facilitate the sale of products like butter and cream that, previous to the start of homogenization, could be made at home from whole milk. To many consumers, the real issues are purity concerns such as blood, pus, manure, and antibiotics as residual contaminants in milk. These concerns are acknowledged by the dairy industry’s own purity standards for grade A milk, which allow, at the time of this writing, 750,000 somatic cells per milliliter. 



With these arguments against the consumption of cow’s milk, how is dairy whey so beneficial, since it is a co-product of making cheese? 



• Milk must be thoroughly cleaned and filtered to remove antibiotics and other residual contamination before cheese can be made, meaning that whey is as clean as any vegetable source for milk substitutes, such as Soy milk. 



• Dairy whey is the most desirable part of cow’s milk from a human standpoint, as it contains the highest quality protein known and a nearly perfect assortment of trace minerals like those found in human milk.

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• Mucous and allergy causing histamines are removed with the calcium caseinate and remain in the cheese, but not the whey. 



Milk allergy is not lactose intolerance. Over sixty million Americans are either lactose intolerant to various degrees, or reactive to milk allergens. Many people have both allergies and a problem digesting lactose. It is rare to be 100% lactose intolerant, in which case even whey milk needs to be avoided. Most people, however, simply become more lactose intolerant as they age. 



As we age, therefore, our body produces less lactase. Without an adequate amount present to digest lactose, people experience bloating and various gastrointestinal discomforts. Milk is often not blamed, since the sufferer has been drinking milk for years. A person who might drink a glass of milk at age forty with no side effects, may have a problem at fifty. 



What do we do differently in formulating Sammi’s Best Whey and Rice? 



Whey is concentrated by washing out the lactose and leaving higher concentrations of protein. This product, called Whey Protein Concentrate (WPC), has less lactose than sweet dairy whey before concentrating it. WPC is the basis for our whey milk. We replace the butterfat with coconut oil, which is the closest vegetable fat to the fat found in mother’s milk. We replace about 70% of the lactose with organic raw cane sugar. This means that most people with lactose intolerance will experience no unpleasant digestive problems after drinking our whey milk. 



One reason why people drink milk is for a source of calcium, however, the type of calcium in cow’s milk, while perfect for cows, is not easily absorbed by humans who have only one stomach and not four. The phosphorus-to-calcium ratio is not suited for humans either, and according to the doctors mentioned above is a poor source of calcium. Sammi’s Best uses Calcium Citrate, the same type of highly useable calcium found in orange juice, and is fortified with all important magnesium. 



Of the nine critical nutrients for humans, cow’s milk falls short in five out of the nine categories. Whey milk from Sammi’s Best exceeds in all nine including Vitamin C, Iron, Folic Acid and natural Vitamin D. Sammi’s Best Whey Milk also contains a more complex sugar and more efficient complex carbohydrates, and has a lower glycemic index than cow’s milk. 



We add back the health-promoting probiotic Acidophilus and Bifidus cultures found in yogurts that are necessary to good digestion and for assimilation of lactose. That is why many people who can drink raw milk cannot drink pasteurized milk, because it lacks the active probiotics. 



​In summary, therefore, when compared to homogenized milk, Sammi's Best Whey & Rice Milk Alternative is easier to digest, has less calories and sugar, less lactose, more useable calcium, probiotics, is a good source of trace minerals and vitamins not found in milk and tastes great.