Protein powder

Protein powder is one of the oldest and most popular dietary supplements regardless of the form of exercise. With protein powder, you can supplement your diet and also benefit from the rapid uptake associated with exercise.

What is a protein powder?

Protein powder is a popular dietary supplement that comes in many different flavors and shapes. It is extracted from either animal or vegetable raw materials. Here, the animals are usually classified as complete proteins, which means that the protein has a high biological value (BV). By biological value is meant how well a protein satisfies the human need for all amino acids. Among the animal protein sources we find mainly milk protein, whey and casein protein and egg protein (in a few cases meat protein). Among the vegetable forms, the most common are soy, hemp and pea protein.

How is protein powder made?

In the form of dietary supplements, the most popular varieties are whey protein and casein protein, which are extracted from cow's milk. During manufacture, whey and casein are separated from each other, after which a filtration and purification process takes over. The filtration process can take place in several different steps to give different varieties of protein powder with different properties - for example concentrate, isolate and hydrolyzate. The same type of filtration process is also used for vegetable protein powders. The filtration process is mainly used to get rid of as many carbohydrates and fats as possible. Even the highly filtered protein powder products contain a smaller amount of trace elements, ash and moisture, which means that a protein powder can rarely have a higher protein content than 95-96%. Then flavors must be added because the higher the degree of purification of a protein powder, the bitterer it becomes to the taste. This means that the amount of protein is slightly lower on a flavored protein than a natural ditto. It also means that the protein content can vary by some percentage point between different flavors. In practice, this is one to two grams of protein per 100 grams, which is negligible.