Name: Whey.<\/p>\n
Age: As old as milk.<\/p>\n
Appearance: Translucent, yellow-tinged.<\/p>\n
What is it? Whey is what remains after you\u2019ve made cheese: the milk curdles, the curds are strained and the whey is left over.<\/p>\n
Yeah, but what\u2019s in it? About 75% to 93% of it is water. The rest is lactose, protein and fat. Salty whey, produced when cheese curds are salted early in the process, also contains a lot of salt \u2013 as much as 10%<\/a>.<\/p>\n What is it used for? Whey can be used to produce more cheese and cheese-style foods \u2013 ricotta, manouri and the caramel-like Norwegian spread brunost are made from whey \u2013 and the protein can be extracted for nutritional supplements. But salty whey is generally considered a waste product.<\/p>\n How much waste are we talking about? Britain produces 95,000 tonnes of salty whey annually<\/a> and disposing of it presents an environmental challenge, in part because it\u2019s so salty.<\/p>\n Surely technology can meet the challenge. Can\u2019t we put the whey on a rocket and crash it <\/a>on to the moon?<\/a> We may not have to. Researchers at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, working with the space tech company Take Root Bio, have devised a method for turning salty whey into fuel<\/a>.<\/p>\n Actual fuel? Yes \u2013 it could heat homes or power your car.<\/p>\n Will my exhaust smell like cheese? No word on that yet.<\/p>\n How do they do it? The sugars in the whey are subjected to a \u201cbio-based\u201d process.<\/p>\n What a weird idea. Not, however, a new one. In 2021, the then Prince Charles burnished his green credentials by running his Aston Martin on bioethanol made from whey and surplus wine<\/a>.<\/p>\n Surplus wine? That sounds like a royal family problem. Bioethanol has fallen out of favour as a green fuel since. The salty whey research is about adding value to byproducts that \u201cstill contain valuable components but can be challenging to manage\u201d, according to Heriot-Watt\u2019s Dr Jane White.<\/p>\n So is whey the cheap petrol of tomorrow? Whey is pretty expensive<\/a>. High demand for protein supplements<\/a> \u2013 largely driven by their recommendation to patients on weight-loss drugs \u2013 has pushed up the price of whey-protein concentrate. Some suppliers have already sold out for the rest of the year.<\/p>\n Wine surpluses, whey shortages \u2013 what crazy times we live in. I\u2019ll admit it, I did not see any of this coming.<\/p>\n Do say: \u201cTo transform whey \u2013 something regarded as waste \u2013 into something of value can provide real benefit to cheese manufacturers and the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n Don\u2019t say: \u201cDrive caerphilly, your majesty.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Name: Whey. Age: As old as milk. Appearance: Translucent, yellow-tinged. What is it? Whey is what remains after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":726410,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-726409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=726409"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726409\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/726410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=726409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=726409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=726409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}