
If you are looking to purchase
In this article I’m going to discuss the processing and nutritional difference between these two types of
The Processing Difference
The difference between
Below is a high level overview of how
Whey Concentrate & Whey Isolate Processing
- Cows are milked
- Milk is sent to a cheese processing facility
- Milk is pasteurized
- An enzyme is added to the milk to separate the milk into curds and whey (remember little miss muffett?)
- The curds are used to make Cheese
- The whey is sent through very fine filters (called micro-filtration) to remove most of the fat and carbohydrate from the whey. The result is whey concentrate
- To make whey “isolate” the whey is then sent through another filtration process (called ultra-filtration) to remove more of the fat and carbohydrate from the whey
- Then the whey (concentrate and isolate) is spray dried to turn the liquid whey into powder
The Nutritional Difference
The bottom line here is that Whey Isolate Powder “typically” contains more protein and less fat and carbohydrate than Whey Concentrate.
But as you see below, the difference in nutritional profile (per serving) is not significant.
Below are the nutritional profiles comparing ProMix Unflavored Whey Concentrate to ProMix unflavored Whey Isolate so you can see the nutritional difference between an Isolate and a Concentrate made by the same brand.
Concentrate Isolate
Serving Size 30g 30g
Total Fat 1.5g 0.45g
Saturated Fat 0.5g 0g
Trans Fat 0g 0g
Cholesterol 50mg 14mg
Sodium 50mg 45mg
Carbohydrate 3g 2g
Sugar 1g 2g
Protein 25g 27g
Summary
So that’s the difference between
Many people will tell you the main difference between these two types of proteins is the cost but as you can see in my All Natural Whey Comparison Chart, this is not always the case. Some brands of Whey Isolates are more cost effective than Whey Concentrates.
Of course you may be wondering which type of
The 4 most common reasons people use
In my next article I’ll take a look at each of the top 4 most common reasons people use