12 ms·

Greek Yogurt’s Dark Side

176 points by palidanx 13y ago

riverjiang 13y ago
Sure, big fonts for headlines look nice --- but this is ridiculous.
simonsarris 13y ago
This article seems suspect in its sensationalism, not for the facts presented, but for the ones not addressed. Greek yogurt is widely eaten in lots of countries (called labneh most of the middle east). If we were to address this seriously we would have to ask: What do they do with the strained byproduct? The article doesn't seem to give any thought to the countries that already consume a lot of labneh. My (Lebanese) grandmother used to make it by hanging a cloth above the sink, so her solution was merely down the drain. edit: Woah! Sorry, I don't mean to imply that it isn't a problem. I mean to imply that many other countries may consume as much per capita as the US, but if lots of it is home-made, the waste problem might not be as visible, even if it is just as real. ~~~~ > one expert calls a “dead sea,” The proper term for oxygen-deprived waters is actually "dead zone", to reduce confusion with the (merely very saline) Dead Sea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology) ~~~~ I found a paper that I think is much more interesting than the posted article: Utilization of Labneh Whey Lactose Hydrolyzed Syrup in Baking and Confectionery, from the Pakistan Journal of Nutrition http://www.pjbs.org/pjnonline/fin2285.pdf http://www.pjbs.org/pjnonline/fin2285.pdf
- dxbydt 13y ago
  >so her solution was merely down the drain. Suppose greek yogurt hadn't taken off in the US & remained a niche product for some health-freaks, then Dannon & Chobani would also throw it down the drain & we'd be none the wiser. The product has taken off in a way no one imagined. At the supermarkets, I see not just athletes but positively obese masses loading up on greek yogurt in some mistaken belief that it can compensate for their other excesses with soda pop & candy. Greek yogurt sells out even after they price it at $6! Clearly, we need an industrial solution to get rid of the byproduct, if we are going to manufacture the damn thing on an industrial scale.
  - jerrya 13y ago
    But remember that much of US Greek Yogurt is Greek Yogurt + SUGAR + JAM + FRUIT = Candy.
    - nhebb 13y ago
      I'm glad you brought that up. Sweetened yogurt is one of the worst pseudo health foods on the market. Chobani's strawberry has 20 gm of sugar (4.76 tsp), and Yoplait is worse at 33 gm (7.86 tsp). That's a butt-load of sugar for such a small container.
      - lawnchair_larry 13y ago
        That's an odd way to count. So fruits are bad pseudo health foods too? 8oz of pure, fresh squeezed orange juice has 22 grams of sugar. It wouldn't make sense to say that is "~5 tsp of sugar".
        xyzzyz 13y ago
        fruit juice is indeed not very healthy, because of its enormous sugar content. you'd probably never eat for a single meal the number of oranges that go into a single orange juice glass.
        itsybitsycoder 13y ago
        Fruit juice is not the best example of a health food. There's as much sugar in most fruit juices than there is in an equal volume of Coke [1]. When we were kids, my brother had to get caps put on all his teeth because he drank too much apple juice, and even though we brushed 2x a day, the sugar rotted his teeth. Plain fruit is better because it has more fiber and about half the sugar in a serving than the juice [2]. [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-204_162-673229.html http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-204_162-673229.html [2] http://healthland.time.com/2009/08/07/calorie-counter-fruit-vs-fruit-juice/ http://healthland.time.com/2009/08/07/calorie-counter-fruit-...
        nhebb 13y ago
- mbreese 13y ago
  I think that it's all a question of scale. The amount of whey produced by your grandmother is exponentially less than that produced by Chobani or Dannon. So, while she could just pour it down the drain, at industrial scale, that just isn't possible. But, you do bring up a good point - what does the rest of the world do with their excess acidic whey? Is it produced anywhere else in the world at industrial scales?
- guyzero 13y ago
  Your Lebanese grandmother did not pour a few million gallons down the drain.
  - lotsofcows 13y ago
    No, but a few million Lebanese grandmothers did. Which seems like too low a number...
- rayiner 13y ago
  > My (Lebanese) grandmother used to make it by hanging a cloth above the sink, so her solution was merely down the drain. Which is exactly what companies would do, on an industrial scale, if it weren't illegal. But in a sense what your grandmother does is wrong. Even if we assume that there is no inherent value to healthy oceans and rivers, it robs, in nickles and dimes, fisherman whose catches are affected by the acid in household wastewater. Your grandmother saves a few cents on proper disposal while costing other people a few cents to deal with the problem she created.
  - derleth 13y ago
    And if you still Kant see how this would be a bad thing, look up the Categorical Imperative sometime: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
    - millstone 13y ago
      Do you mean to argue that the laws that govern industrial food safety and waste disposal ought also to apply to homemade food? (I hope not, since I've been known to grill and eat a medium-rare burger!) It's reasonable to hold large commercial operations to stricter standards. I doubt that any homemade byproducts are disposed of "properly," but the impact of homemade Greek yogurt must be a tiny fraction of the commercial impact, and I don't think anyone is prepared to regulate what individuals do with milk after they buy it.
      - graycat 13y ago
        > waste disposal In my case, it's easy: All the 'stuff' from the kitchen or bathrooms flows through big, white plastic pipes to a concrete tank buried in my back yard. Out of the tank are some tube, tile, rock or whatever ways for the water to flow. Done. I never see the stuff again. The water from the tank adds water and plant nutrients to my backyard. It's all the courtesy of some wonderful 'bugs': Once I had a sore on my foot, applied some Wal-Mart triple antibiotic cream, washed my socks, and a few days later way in the back of my backyard saw 'stuff' bubbling up, stuff I didn't want to see again! Sure: That Wal-Mart stuff was POWERFUL and sterilized my septic tank! Solution? Sure: There's a box, Rid-X or some such, can buy at the grocery store. The box has some dry beads with no odor. So, flush the beads and, presto, the septic tank is working again. For milk, I've poured old, sour milk down the kitchen sink with no evidence of a problem. Net, for a lot of disposal, not a problem.
- skaevola 13y ago
  I didn't think that the article was sensationalist at all. It briefly identified a problem and then discussed solutions used currently, possible future solutions, and interviewed plenty of people in relevant fields. Your grandmother's solution was even addressed (pouring the byproduct into rivers is environmentally harmful). I literally can't see how you found the article sensationalist. It's practically a textbook example of proper journalism.
- 3327 13y ago
  first great response covered a few points I wanted to say about the article... To add more my family is of Greek and Turkish heritage, I live in NYC and make my own yoghurt (super easy)... I also strain a batch. The water that gets strained you can drink, in fact, its actually the same water that remains in yoghurt when you take a deep scoop and leave higher ground yoghurt relative to the remainder. Yoghurt has a Ph level of around 4.5-5.0 making it low acidic (for comparison orange juice has a ph of 3.5). This article refers to it as acid whey and makes it sound as if its hydrochloric acid. In all honestly there are much more serious problems to the environment than yoghurt water. How about when excess or spoiled OJ is dumped in Florida? By default its ph is an order more acidic so the impact should be too... Plus yogurt water is drinkable and is actually good for you (proof by induction).
  - tallanvor 13y ago
    The article states that "the resulting whey is roughly as acidic as orange juice", so the industrial process probably creates more acidic waste than what you make at home (because they're using a different process that results in less dilution, I would assume). The article specifically explains why acid whey is harmful to the environment - it's decomposition robs streams and rivers of oxygen and kills fish. The point is that your personal experience making a small amount of yoghurt at home does not make you an expert when it comes to large scale production and the problems resulting from the waste produced.
    - 3327 13y ago
      >>The article states that "the resulting whey is roughly as acidic as orange juice", so the industrial process probably creates more acidic waste than what you make at home (because they're using a different process that results in less dilution, I would assume). "roughly" is a pretty general term when there is an order difference. The difference between 4.5 and 3 is pretty significant. Unless they actually tested the Ph and publish the number in the article they should not be making claims as "roughly". >The point is that your personal experience making a small amount of yoghurt at home does not make you an expert when it comes to large scale production and the problems resulting from the waste produced. >The article specifically explains why acid whey is harmful to the environment - it's decomposition robs streams and rivers of oxygen and kills fish. yes that is evident. my point was that there are much more harmful things going into rivers and oceans rather than yoghurt juice.
- Spooky23 13y ago
  The focus on New York makes it suspect in my mind... NY is going through an era of very extreme environmental activism regarding waste water -- mostly centering around gas fracking. The interests that fund these groups are rich NYC types who are modern day land barons, buying up defunct farmland and building vast landholdings. Things that make farm business difficult are good for these people.
- erock 13y ago
  My wife works for Agriculture Extension in our state, so she is a bit in the know here. She says Greek Yogurt is the only growth dairy has seen in over 20 years. Because of that, everyone is going to (or already has) start making it. As far as being New York centric, I would venture to guess it would be because a lot of the research this is based on, is coming out of Cornell, which is the Land Grant institution in New York (Land Grants run extension).
- ebiester 13y ago
  I read the article, and saw something completely different. Whey is a potentially valuable byproduct, too nutritious to just throw away and they can't do it legally anyway. So these were some of the ways that the whey was being used. The food industry looking for ways to use the byproducts of an industrial process isn't exactly new, but it's also not something outside the industry thinks about. Modern Farmer is doing some interesting work in the intersection between farming and how we're re-conceptualizing food in the last decade.
guard-of-terra 13y ago
Why don't they use it as a base for cooking biscuits? Replace water with acidic whey and throw some baking soda in to produce CO2 to leaven dough. You'll get more tasty biscuit with proteins and minerals. You'll probably need to remove lactose, tho.
- mikepurvis 13y ago
  I was going to say—input for yummy baking. Probably not a realistic answer for the scale being discussed, but when we strain our homemade yogurt at home, I toss the drippings into the next loaf of bread I bake. Gives it a wonderful tangy flavour.
  - guard-of-terra 13y ago
    I think that all biscuits combined make for all greek yogurt combined. We're talking comparable output here. Of course, not all recipes win from using whey, but that will seriously soften the problem already.
  - rhema 13y ago
    When we make yogurt (greek), I make a chocholate shake with the whey. It's quite good like that when cold.
ZirconCode 13y ago
The first thing which came to my mind was the argument against nuclear energy; it produces too much waste. The waste from yogurt seems to be a far bigger problem though. While not so long-term, it is massive. Interesting to draw parallels. Over here there's a syrupy-like product called Calpis. It's slightly acidic yet milky and sweet. As far as I remember, it is made at least partly from this byproduct. Of course it's a small step to the solution. Another ten cents, if it is largely water based, what about letting the water evaporate? Or does the acid go with it? I apologize for the unrelated thoughts.
- icegreentea 13y ago
  The problems with waste are clearly a short-term issue caused by unexpected growth. If they can absorb ~70% of their acid whey by product by mixing into nearby farms, then given the sheer amount of livestock in the US, you can definately absorb all of it if you solve the distribution/logistics problems. Really, all of the solutions the come up with will work. None of really have a real scaling issue, but they do require capital and have lag-time, which apparently were not sufficiently considered. The problem here isn't that 'oh, there's a river of this "toxic" waste that we don't know what to deal with'. The problem is 'oh, we've tripled our production without having a solid plan on waste disposal, and we don't want to pay more to truck this stuff to further farms'.
- mrb 13y ago
  I was thinking of letting it evaporate too. It seems this is the less costly option. No need to truck it anywhere, just dump it in big artificial pools. Once in a while, collect the solid waste from the pools (lactose, mineral, proteins). They say this waste is dangerous for the environment, but maybe not when it is in solid form?
  - icegreentea 13y ago
    Here are the following problems. Firstly, the sheer scale. One of the major producers makes 150 million gallons a year. Or half a million gallon a day, or roughly an olympic sized swimming pool. Or... lets go all out. Half a million gallons is roughly 2 million liters, or 2 million kilograms of water. Assume air temperature of 20 degrees. To boil off the water, its going to take 4 kilojoules per kilogram per degree celcius.... so thats 640 GJ already. Ignore heat of vaporization. Incident solar radiation at like ... 1000W per m^2. 12 hours -> 43200 seconds per day, so 1 m^2 receives 44MJ is a day... which means you need about 15000m^2 of surface area to evaporate off a day's worth of production in a day. Optimistically.
ggchappell 13y ago
Interesting, but some important facts are buried late in the article. In particular, as anyone in the U.S. who reads food labels knows, whey is a very common ingredient in processed foods. So what's the problem? A partial answer: > The concept is roughly modeled on the success that cheese-makers have had selling products derived from their own byproduct — sweet whey. Sweet whey is more valuable and easier to handle than acid whey, as it has a lot more protein, and is easier to dry because it isn’t as acidic as Greek yogurt whey. Cheese-makers have developed a lucrative business selling whey protein for use in body-building supplements and as a food ingredient. And Greek yogurt makers are eager to follow suit. ---- EDIT: Another comment. > Rejman’s workers take the shipments and try to find uses for the whey: mix it with silage to feed to the farm’s 3,300 cows; .... Wouldn't most adult cattle be lactose-intolerant? (As human adults were until that wacky lactase-persistence mutation hit parts of Europe & Africa.) Adding whey to feed for adult cattle sounds to me like a good way to make cattle sick. OTOH, surely farmers would have figured this out. Can anyone explain this?
- alecdibble 13y ago
  As far as the lactose intolerance, I think it is indirectly referenced in this line from the article: It’s also sort of like feeding your cows candy bars — they like it, but shouldn’t eat too much or it upsets their digestive system.
- maxerickson 13y ago
  I would sort of expect it to be less problematic for ruminants to have bacteria digesting sugar for them. It's also going to be a relatively small proportion of the feed.
draftable 13y ago
It would be interesting to see if this is viable as a food source for genetically modified bacteria to convert into biofuel.
- guyzero 13y ago
  The article describes that it already gets converted by non-engineered bacteria into a biofuel - called methane. it's just that building processing tanks and methane capture equipment is expensive. Not like nuclear power plan expensive, but a million bucks is a lot of capital investment for a farmer - note that some farmers already do this to process animal manure.
imissmyjuno 13y ago
Would the whey be usable for production of protein supplements[0], or is it too acidic? It seems like a fairly major industry. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whey_protein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whey_protein
- leoh 13y ago
  From the article: "The resulting whey is roughly as acidic as orange juice. It’s almost entirely made up of water... and a very small amount of proteins."
  - gcb0 13y ago
    how does water and sugar gets acid?
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
      > how does water and sugar gets acid? Yogurt (which is what the whey is the result of straining) is not just water and sugar, it contains a number of other things -- notably, lactic acid.
      - gcb0 13y ago
        my confusion was mostly that the article claim the residue solution is pretty much water and sugar
    - tptacek 13y ago
      Milk + Lactobacillus = Yogurt, Water, Acid
- mbreese 13y ago
  Different kind of whey... (from the article) the whey used in protein supplements is sweet whey from cheese production.
od2m 13y ago
If this is the same whey as in whey protein… Whey prices are THROUGH THE ROOF the last couple of years owing to inflation and large purchasers drying up supply.
- jff 13y ago
  It's a different whey, although they're trying to use it for the same supplement market.
- dragonwriter 13y ago
  > If this is the same whey as in whey protein... Whey prices are THROUGH THE ROOF the last couple of years owing to inflation and large purchasers drying up supply. Whey protein is usually processed from whey that is a byproduct of cheesemaking; as the article notes, the acid whey from making Greek yogurt is much more acidic, and has much lower protein concentration; while it is probably possible to extract whey protein from it it is a much poorer source of it than the whey from cheesemaking (and given the apparently huge supply and the rather visible market for whey to supply the supplement, etc., industry, I suspect if it were even marginally economically viable for that use, we wouldn't have articles like the one here.)
StavrosK 13y ago
Huh, apparently Greek yogurt doesn't fall under the Protected Designation of Origin scheme (and I don't think the US follows that anyway), so it doesn't actually have to be Greek to be called Greek. Interesting.
- greggman 13y ago
  Neither does I assume "Italian Dressing", "French Dressing", "Greek Salad", and of course "French Fries" which apparently are actually Belgium
  - StavrosK 13y ago
    Those are combinations of things. Greek yoghurt is a method of making yoghurt (and the resulting product), like Feta cheese, for example.
    - ceejayoz 13y ago
      French fries aren't a combination of things.
      - StavrosK 13y ago
        Neither is the Chinese wall. How does this have any bearing to my point above?
        ars 13y ago
        That's a good question. What is your point anyway? How does being, or not being, a combination make any difference anyway?
        ceejayoz 13y ago
        You said "Those are combinations of things." French fries are not. What is difficult to parse here?
    - ars 13y ago
jdietrich 13y ago
This article is complete bullshit. It presents the issue as if it's a sudden surprise problem, when in fact there are established markets for whey and whey derivatives. The global market for whey protein is worth $3.8bn. To call whey (even relatively poor quality whey) "waste" is ludicrous - it's a byproduct with an established commercial value. Acid whey requires more processing than sweet whey, but it's an established and well-understood problem for the dairy industry. The problem for the yoghurt producer is simply that liquid whey is right at the bottom of the value chain - it requires a great deal of processing to become $8/kg whey protein concentrate or $12/kg whey protein isolate. Yoghurt manufacturers may be extremely keen to move up the value chain and extract more profit from their whey byproducts, but there's no great market failure occurring here.
- pessimizer 13y ago
  I don't understand what you're saying here. If the cost of processing the acid whey is higher than the market price of what it's processed into, then it's waste, right? I can't think of any waste that can't be processed into something that can be sold, providing you don't mind losing a massive amount of money on the transaction.
- VladRussian2 13y ago
  my grandmother's ranch : milk produced by cows -> sell to cheese factory whey the factory returned back -> feed to pigs, chicken, turkey
  - hencq 13y ago
    The article does mention that cheese making produces sweet whey as opposed to the acid whey that Greek yoghurt produces.
- TezzellEnt 13y ago
  From a broad search, it seems that much of the downstream market for whey byproduct of yogurt and cheese production has plenty of uses. In this article by the USDA (http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/mar08/whey.htm http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/mar08/whey.htm), it discusses dairy farm cooperatives turning the Lactose sugars, of which 5% of the "waste whey," is used for ethanol production. Whether there is a difference between acid or sweet whey, I am unsure, however there is certainly a demand for the byproducts of the dairy/cheese/yogurt industries.
beowulfey 13y ago
The presence of lactose made me curious as to whether all this whey could be used in ethanol production. It would help reduce the need for corn ethanol while taking care of this problem. Curiously, this possible solution wasn't mentioned in the article at all. Here is a white paper describing a fermentation process (pretty standard ethanol production, from the looks of it). http://nzic.org.nz/ChemProcesses/dairy/3H.pdf http://nzic.org.nz/ChemProcesses/dairy/3H.pdf And here is an excellent USDA review looking at a lot of the different solutions to this whey surplus: http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/RR214.pdf http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/RR214.pdf
- TezzellEnt 13y ago
  In my cursory search on the matter (and comment a few moments ago to another reply), ethanol production was my first thought when dealing with the excess lactose. It seems that there are a few cooperatives that own a facility in California & Minnesota. I am still unsure of the difference between "sweet" whey & "acid" whey, I believe that they should be able to convert the lactose into a useable ethanol.
mvidal01 13y ago
Some people run thriving startups based on whey. http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=29643 http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=2964...
- jaryd 13y ago
  Thanks for that link--good read :)
nkozyra 13y ago
My tub of whey protein powder costs $50 for 5lbs. If this is becoming so endemic, please tell me where precisely to go so I can save barrels of money a year.
- mgmeyers 13y ago
  From the article: "Barbano, who specializes in filtration methods for separation and recovery of protein, has his sights set on the tiny amount of protein in acid whey. He believes it might be usable as an infant formula ingredient. But first Barbano has to figure out how to extract the protein in a cost-effective way, and his research is just getting underway."
  - nkozyra 13y ago
    My comment was tongue-in-cheek. That said, I've known bodybuilders ever since they forced us to start working out freshman year and they'd drink 20 gallons of highly acidic fluid if it meant some protein was in there. Hell, you could market it as a miracle supplement.
nevster 13y ago
Did anyone else do a double-take at the picture half way through? For a split-second I thought it was Robert Scoble!
deleted 13y ago
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amurmann 13y ago
I actually was faced with the same problem a little while ago. I started making my own Greek yoghurt once a week at home. So I started having to throw out these big amounts of whey. That felt very wasteful, so I started to do some research into what I could do with the whey. It turns out to be a great substitute in many recipes that call for buttermilk (pancakes, mashed potatoes). It also is great in smoothies. Apparently you can even make ricotta cheese from it. Last weekend I actually still had enough yoghurt, but made yoghurt because I was out of whey! It's great stuff and I haven't even been able yet to make any ricotta, since I don't have enough left after all the other now mandatory use cases. I am really surprised that the whey is so acidic. Mine at least doesn't taste that sour. I would like some explanation for that. However, cultures used by these big corporations also aren't real, sustainable greek yoghurt cultures. You can use the culture from commercial yoghurt as a starter for your own yoghurt and go from there. However, the culture will die eventually, since they are bred for maximum consistent result in a laboratory like environment. I wonder if that has to do with it. The topic of fermentation is super interesting. I can throng lay recommend to everyone o read Sandor Katz's "Art of Fermentation". It's a great work about the history, culture and basic workings of fermentation.
dmor 13y ago
This reminds me of a client I had a long time ago who sold silane gas, which is the byproduct of making metallurgical grade silicon. It is a byproduct of semiconductor production (among other things) and very scary to store because it combusts upon contact with oxygen. So as you can imagine if there is a leak... it's bad news. In the 90s they had so much of this stuff and it was really expensive to store and not much could be done with it, by then they discovered it could be used to coat the glass exterior of entire skyscrapers to reduce glare, and to make solar panels, and many other things. I always think of this story when I hear about byproduct management problems, and hope they'll find a commercial solution - they just might invent something new and awesome out of necessity.
kissickas 13y ago
Why would it have to be farmers who make a capital investment to convert this stuff to methane? I would think the yogurt companies would just do it themselves and save on the shipping, nobody needs farmers to invest millions, just buy the manure (or I'm sure there's another way to do it).
- DanBC 13y ago
  Farmers have manure. Shipping that manure around doesn't make much sense. It's heavy, dirty, smelly, gloopy. Shipping whey makes more sense. It's heavy, but not as dirty or smelly or gloopy.
return0 13y ago
I 'm more interested on why hackers are interested in this article. Somebody will come up with a good idea on how to process the whey further. Yoghurt production certainly hasn't destroyed Greece until now, so there is a bit of sensationalism here as well.
- dagurp 13y ago
  Here in Iceland we drink it and use it to store food in the traditional way (don't see that catching on anywhere else though). The most interesting use of it though is in sports drinks. They've managed to make the whey taste ok and still keep the drink healthy. I'm sure we will see this elsewhere.
jasonkester 13y ago
Sounds like we've finally found a use for all those oceans we built. The problem with liquids like this that use up oxygen when you dump them in water is that they use up all the oxygen when you dump them in the pond. Dump them in a place with plenty of water and they find all the oxygen they need and happily degrade without killing all your fish. Back in my Environmental Engineer days, I worked on a study of Ethylene Glycol (the stuff they use do de-ice airplanes), and how it affected the local wetlands. The worry wasn't that it would get into the waterways. There's no stopping that if you spray thousands of gallons of it onto a runway. The worry was that those local waterways wouldn't disperse it fast enough for it to harmlessly degrade into weetabix and rainbows (or whatever similarly neutral stuff it turns into when you add water and oxygen to it) before it affected the critters in the pond. So it seems like a nice solution to this, that definitely won't fly if you tell anybody with an easy sense of environmental outrage and a disinclination to read a chemistry book, would be to load up a big boat full of it, steam well out to sea, and open the cork.
ozgung 13y ago
The only problem with "Greek Yogurt" is that there is no separate thing as Greek Yogurt. It's just a western marketing name for strained yogurt. Yogurt is a food of Turkish origin and even the words Yogurt and Chobani are directly from Turkish language. Yogurt and its derivatives are very common throughout the former Ottoman geography, from Balkans to Arabic countries. Does that really matter? Yes, if culture and history has any importance.
- yareally 13y ago
  Origins of yogurt in general go back much farther than the Ottomans though by at least 1500-3000 years. Though, you're correct that the word itself is Turkish. Also correct that it's basically called Greek Yogurt because marketers in the West thought it sounded better. In ancient Indian records, the combination of yogurt and honey is called "the food of the gods".[17] Persian traditions hold that "Abraham owed his fecundity and longevity to the regular ingestion of yogurt".[18] The oldest writings mentioning yogurt are attributed to Pliny the Elder, who remarked that certain "barbarous nations" knew how "to thicken the milk into a substance with an agreeable acidity".[19] The use of yogurt by medieval Turks is recorded in the books Diwan Lughat al-Turk by Mahmud Kashgari and Kutadgu Bilig by Yusuf Has Hajib written in the 11th century.[20][21] Both texts mention the word "yogurt" in different sections and describe its use by nomadic Turks.[20][21] The earliest yogurts were probably spontaneously fermented by wild bacteria in goat skin bags.[22] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogurt#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogurt#History
- jacobr 13y ago
  In Sweden there is both Turkish and Greek yoghurt. The Greek yoghurt is higher in protein and a bit more sour, iirc.
witek 13y ago
Better out than in, as Shrek says.
bjhoops1 13y ago
I read this article while throwing back some Oikos. So meta.
JasonFruit 13y ago
I use whey from Greek yoghurt for baking in recipes that call for buttermilk. Probably not a large-scale solution, but it works brilliantly on a small scale.
squozzer 13y ago
Any reason why they couldn't divert the "greek yogurt" whey into ice cream like they do for "ordinary whey"?
- skaevola 13y ago
  If you RTFA, it mentions that Greek Yogurt produces extremely acidic byproducts which are more difficult to deal with.
tripzilch 13y ago
In Switzerland and the Netherlands we use the milk whey to create a soft drink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivella http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivella Afaik, it was indeed invented in order to find a use for this by-product. It tastes "a bit weird, but pretty good" (that's also their slogan, and it's quite accurate IMO :) )
graycat 13y ago
The article said that the whey was "toxic" because if put it in a lake or stream it will consume the oxygen and kill the fish. That's mostly just FUD, hype, and nonsense: The water treatment industry is very aware of 'biologic oxygen demand' (BOD). Basically, yes, decomposing some whey in a lake will consume some oxygen from the lake. Consume too much oxygen and then will kill the fish. Sure. But that doesn't make the whey "toxic". Indeed, lots of things go into the streams, rivers, and lakes that consume oxygen. If don't consume too much oxygen, then likely fine. No problem (at least about oxygen). And, of course, what consumes the whey is biologic activity that might make the water better for plants, fish, etc. Sure, go to a big city sewage processing plant. What do they do? Sure, bubble air through the dark liquid! Or, they follow the recipe, "Add air and stir."! Net, the article looks like traditional newsie stuff -- claim the sky is falling and get eyeballs and ad revenue. Smelly bait for the ad hook. Make people feel guilty from their 'sins' of their consumption of thick yogurt and what they pour down their drains. Deliberate, confused, nonsense guilt trip. Bummer. For over 20 years, I've poured lots of stuff down my kitchen drain. Too old, sour milk has been a common item. Much worse, when I feed canned cat food to my kitty cats, they often don't eat all of it, and, being smart little kitty cats, don't eat it at all after it becomes old and dry. So, then I have to clean out such food dishes for them. To do this I soak the dishes overnight in water with detergent, rinse the dishes, and flush the rest. And I'm 'destroying the 100% all-natural, pure, pristine, precious, sensitive, delicate planet'? I don't think so! Instead all the 'stuff' from the kitchen and bathrooms goes through big, white plastic pipes to a big concrete tank sunk in my backyard. The tank has some 'bugs' that reduce essentially everything into clear water, some methane gas, and a tiny quantity of solids. The gas floats off; the water goes into the drain field in my backyard; and the solids accumulate. The tank has been working fine for over 20 years without cleaning. For the water, the backyard loves it. Net, no worries. So, I'm not destroying the planet! And I'm not guilty.

176 points by palidanx 13y ago

Sure, big fonts for headlines look nice --- but this is ridiculous.

This article seems suspect in its sensationalism, not for the facts presented, but for the ones not addressed. Greek yogurt is widely eaten in lots of countries (called labneh most of the middle east). If we were to address this seriously we would have to ask: What do they do with the strained byproduct? The article doesn't seem to give any thought to the countries that already consume a lot of labneh. My (Lebanese) grandmother used to make it by hanging a cloth above the sink, so her solution was merely down the drain. edit: Woah! Sorry, I don't mean to imply that it isn't a problem. I mean to imply that many other countries may consume as much per capita as the US, but if lots of it is home-made, the waste problem might not be as visible, even if it is just as real. ~~~~ > one expert calls a “dead sea,” The proper term for oxygen-deprived waters is actually "dead zone", to reduce confusion with the (merely very saline) Dead Sea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_zone_(ecology) ~~~~ I found a paper that I think is much more interesting than the posted article: Utilization of Labneh Whey Lactose Hydrolyzed Syrup in Baking and Confectionery, from the Pakistan Journal of Nutrition http://www.pjbs.org/pjnonline/fin2285.pdf http://www.pjbs.org/pjnonline/fin2285.pdf

dxbydt 13y ago
>so her solution was merely down the drain. Suppose greek yogurt hadn't taken off in the US & remained a niche product for some health-freaks, then Dannon & Chobani would also throw it down the drain & we'd be none the wiser. The product has taken off in a way no one imagined. At the supermarkets, I see not just athletes but positively obese masses loading up on greek yogurt in some mistaken belief that it can compensate for their other excesses with soda pop & candy. Greek yogurt sells out even after they price it at $6! Clearly, we need an industrial solution to get rid of the byproduct, if we are going to manufacture the damn thing on an industrial scale.
- jerrya 13y ago
  But remember that much of US Greek Yogurt is Greek Yogurt + SUGAR + JAM + FRUIT = Candy.
  - nhebb 13y ago
    I'm glad you brought that up. Sweetened yogurt is one of the worst pseudo health foods on the market. Chobani's strawberry has 20 gm of sugar (4.76 tsp), and Yoplait is worse at 33 gm (7.86 tsp). That's a butt-load of sugar for such a small container.
    - lawnchair_larry 13y ago
      That's an odd way to count. So fruits are bad pseudo health foods too? 8oz of pure, fresh squeezed orange juice has 22 grams of sugar. It wouldn't make sense to say that is "~5 tsp of sugar".
      - xyzzyz 13y ago
        fruit juice is indeed not very healthy, because of its enormous sugar content. you'd probably never eat for a single meal the number of oranges that go into a single orange juice glass.
      - itsybitsycoder 13y ago
        Fruit juice is not the best example of a health food. There's as much sugar in most fruit juices than there is in an equal volume of Coke [1]. When we were kids, my brother had to get caps put on all his teeth because he drank too much apple juice, and even though we brushed 2x a day, the sugar rotted his teeth. Plain fruit is better because it has more fiber and about half the sugar in a serving than the juice [2]. [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-204_162-673229.html http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-204_162-673229.html [2] http://healthland.time.com/2009/08/07/calorie-counter-fruit-vs-fruit-juice/ http://healthland.time.com/2009/08/07/calorie-counter-fruit-...
      - nhebb 13y ago
mbreese 13y ago
I think that it's all a question of scale. The amount of whey produced by your grandmother is exponentially less than that produced by Chobani or Dannon. So, while she could just pour it down the drain, at industrial scale, that just isn't possible. But, you do bring up a good point - what does the rest of the world do with their excess acidic whey? Is it produced anywhere else in the world at industrial scales?
guyzero 13y ago
Your Lebanese grandmother did not pour a few million gallons down the drain.
- lotsofcows 13y ago
  No, but a few million Lebanese grandmothers did. Which seems like too low a number...
rayiner 13y ago
> My (Lebanese) grandmother used to make it by hanging a cloth above the sink, so her solution was merely down the drain. Which is exactly what companies would do, on an industrial scale, if it weren't illegal. But in a sense what your grandmother does is wrong. Even if we assume that there is no inherent value to healthy oceans and rivers, it robs, in nickles and dimes, fisherman whose catches are affected by the acid in household wastewater. Your grandmother saves a few cents on proper disposal while costing other people a few cents to deal with the problem she created.
- derleth 13y ago
  And if you still Kant see how this would be a bad thing, look up the Categorical Imperative sometime: "Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative
  - millstone 13y ago
    Do you mean to argue that the laws that govern industrial food safety and waste disposal ought also to apply to homemade food? (I hope not, since I've been known to grill and eat a medium-rare burger!) It's reasonable to hold large commercial operations to stricter standards. I doubt that any homemade byproducts are disposed of "properly," but the impact of homemade Greek yogurt must be a tiny fraction of the commercial impact, and I don't think anyone is prepared to regulate what individuals do with milk after they buy it.
    - graycat 13y ago
      > waste disposal In my case, it's easy: All the 'stuff' from the kitchen or bathrooms flows through big, white plastic pipes to a concrete tank buried in my back yard. Out of the tank are some tube, tile, rock or whatever ways for the water to flow. Done. I never see the stuff again. The water from the tank adds water and plant nutrients to my backyard. It's all the courtesy of some wonderful 'bugs': Once I had a sore on my foot, applied some Wal-Mart triple antibiotic cream, washed my socks, and a few days later way in the back of my backyard saw 'stuff' bubbling up, stuff I didn't want to see again! Sure: That Wal-Mart stuff was POWERFUL and sterilized my septic tank! Solution? Sure: There's a box, Rid-X or some such, can buy at the grocery store. The box has some dry beads with no odor. So, flush the beads and, presto, the septic tank is working again. For milk, I've poured old, sour milk down the kitchen sink with no evidence of a problem. Net, for a lot of disposal, not a problem.
skaevola 13y ago
I didn't think that the article was sensationalist at all. It briefly identified a problem and then discussed solutions used currently, possible future solutions, and interviewed plenty of people in relevant fields. Your grandmother's solution was even addressed (pouring the byproduct into rivers is environmentally harmful). I literally can't see how you found the article sensationalist. It's practically a textbook example of proper journalism.
3327 13y ago
first great response covered a few points I wanted to say about the article... To add more my family is of Greek and Turkish heritage, I live in NYC and make my own yoghurt (super easy)... I also strain a batch. The water that gets strained you can drink, in fact, its actually the same water that remains in yoghurt when you take a deep scoop and leave higher ground yoghurt relative to the remainder. Yoghurt has a Ph level of around 4.5-5.0 making it low acidic (for comparison orange juice has a ph of 3.5). This article refers to it as acid whey and makes it sound as if its hydrochloric acid. In all honestly there are much more serious problems to the environment than yoghurt water. How about when excess or spoiled OJ is dumped in Florida? By default its ph is an order more acidic so the impact should be too... Plus yogurt water is drinkable and is actually good for you (proof by induction).
- tallanvor 13y ago
  The article states that "the resulting whey is roughly as acidic as orange juice", so the industrial process probably creates more acidic waste than what you make at home (because they're using a different process that results in less dilution, I would assume). The article specifically explains why acid whey is harmful to the environment - it's decomposition robs streams and rivers of oxygen and kills fish. The point is that your personal experience making a small amount of yoghurt at home does not make you an expert when it comes to large scale production and the problems resulting from the waste produced.
  - 3327 13y ago
    >>The article states that "the resulting whey is roughly as acidic as orange juice", so the industrial process probably creates more acidic waste than what you make at home (because they're using a different process that results in less dilution, I would assume). "roughly" is a pretty general term when there is an order difference. The difference between 4.5 and 3 is pretty significant. Unless they actually tested the Ph and publish the number in the article they should not be making claims as "roughly". >The point is that your personal experience making a small amount of yoghurt at home does not make you an expert when it comes to large scale production and the problems resulting from the waste produced. >The article specifically explains why acid whey is harmful to the environment - it's decomposition robs streams and rivers of oxygen and kills fish. yes that is evident. my point was that there are much more harmful things going into rivers and oceans rather than yoghurt juice.
Spooky23 13y ago
The focus on New York makes it suspect in my mind... NY is going through an era of very extreme environmental activism regarding waste water -- mostly centering around gas fracking. The interests that fund these groups are rich NYC types who are modern day land barons, buying up defunct farmland and building vast landholdings. Things that make farm business difficult are good for these people.
erock 13y ago
My wife works for Agriculture Extension in our state, so she is a bit in the know here. She says Greek Yogurt is the only growth dairy has seen in over 20 years. Because of that, everyone is going to (or already has) start making it. As far as being New York centric, I would venture to guess it would be because a lot of the research this is based on, is coming out of Cornell, which is the Land Grant institution in New York (Land Grants run extension).
ebiester 13y ago
I read the article, and saw something completely different. Whey is a potentially valuable byproduct, too nutritious to just throw away and they can't do it legally anyway. So these were some of the ways that the whey was being used. The food industry looking for ways to use the byproducts of an industrial process isn't exactly new, but it's also not something outside the industry thinks about. Modern Farmer is doing some interesting work in the intersection between farming and how we're re-conceptualizing food in the last decade.

guard-of-terra 13y ago

Why don't they use it as a base for cooking biscuits? Replace water with acidic whey and throw some baking soda in to produce CO2 to leaven dough. You'll get more tasty biscuit with proteins and minerals. You'll probably need to remove lactose, tho.

mikepurvis 13y ago
I was going to say—input for yummy baking. Probably not a realistic answer for the scale being discussed, but when we strain our homemade yogurt at home, I toss the drippings into the next loaf of bread I bake. Gives it a wonderful tangy flavour.
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  I think that all biscuits combined make for all greek yogurt combined. We're talking comparable output here. Of course, not all recipes win from using whey, but that will seriously soften the problem already.
- rhema 13y ago
  When we make yogurt (greek), I make a chocholate shake with the whey. It's quite good like that when cold.

ZirconCode 13y ago

The first thing which came to my mind was the argument against nuclear energy; it produces too much waste. The waste from yogurt seems to be a far bigger problem though. While not so long-term, it is massive. Interesting to draw parallels. Over here there's a syrupy-like product called Calpis. It's slightly acidic yet milky and sweet. As far as I remember, it is made at least partly from this byproduct. Of course it's a small step to the solution. Another ten cents, if it is largely water based, what about letting the water evaporate? Or does the acid go with it? I apologize for the unrelated thoughts.

icegreentea 13y ago
The problems with waste are clearly a short-term issue caused by unexpected growth. If they can absorb ~70% of their acid whey by product by mixing into nearby farms, then given the sheer amount of livestock in the US, you can definately absorb all of it if you solve the distribution/logistics problems. Really, all of the solutions the come up with will work. None of really have a real scaling issue, but they do require capital and have lag-time, which apparently were not sufficiently considered. The problem here isn't that 'oh, there's a river of this "toxic" waste that we don't know what to deal with'. The problem is 'oh, we've tripled our production without having a solid plan on waste disposal, and we don't want to pay more to truck this stuff to further farms'.
mrb 13y ago
I was thinking of letting it evaporate too. It seems this is the less costly option. No need to truck it anywhere, just dump it in big artificial pools. Once in a while, collect the solid waste from the pools (lactose, mineral, proteins). They say this waste is dangerous for the environment, but maybe not when it is in solid form?
- icegreentea 13y ago
  Here are the following problems. Firstly, the sheer scale. One of the major producers makes 150 million gallons a year. Or half a million gallon a day, or roughly an olympic sized swimming pool. Or... lets go all out. Half a million gallons is roughly 2 million liters, or 2 million kilograms of water. Assume air temperature of 20 degrees. To boil off the water, its going to take 4 kilojoules per kilogram per degree celcius.... so thats 640 GJ already. Ignore heat of vaporization. Incident solar radiation at like ... 1000W per m^2. 12 hours -> 43200 seconds per day, so 1 m^2 receives 44MJ is a day... which means you need about 15000m^2 of surface area to evaporate off a day's worth of production in a day. Optimistically.

ggchappell 13y ago

Interesting, but some important facts are buried late in the article. In particular, as anyone in the U.S. who reads food labels knows, whey is a very common ingredient in processed foods. So what's the problem? A partial answer: > The concept is roughly modeled on the success that cheese-makers have had selling products derived from their own byproduct — sweet whey. Sweet whey is more valuable and easier to handle than acid whey, as it has a lot more protein, and is easier to dry because it isn’t as acidic as Greek yogurt whey. Cheese-makers have developed a lucrative business selling whey protein for use in body-building supplements and as a food ingredient. And Greek yogurt makers are eager to follow suit. ---- EDIT: Another comment. > Rejman’s workers take the shipments and try to find uses for the whey: mix it with silage to feed to the farm’s 3,300 cows; .... Wouldn't most adult cattle be lactose-intolerant? (As human adults were until that wacky lactase-persistence mutation hit parts of Europe & Africa.) Adding whey to feed for adult cattle sounds to me like a good way to make cattle sick. OTOH, surely farmers would have figured this out. Can anyone explain this?

alecdibble 13y ago
As far as the lactose intolerance, I think it is indirectly referenced in this line from the article: It’s also sort of like feeding your cows candy bars — they like it, but shouldn’t eat too much or it upsets their digestive system.
maxerickson 13y ago
I would sort of expect it to be less problematic for ruminants to have bacteria digesting sugar for them. It's also going to be a relatively small proportion of the feed.

draftable 13y ago

It would be interesting to see if this is viable as a food source for genetically modified bacteria to convert into biofuel.

guyzero 13y ago
The article describes that it already gets converted by non-engineered bacteria into a biofuel - called methane. it's just that building processing tanks and methane capture equipment is expensive. Not like nuclear power plan expensive, but a million bucks is a lot of capital investment for a farmer - note that some farmers already do this to process animal manure.

imissmyjuno 13y ago

Would the whey be usable for production of protein supplements[0], or is it too acidic? It seems like a fairly major industry. [0]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whey_protein http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whey_protein

leoh 13y ago
From the article: "The resulting whey is roughly as acidic as orange juice. It’s almost entirely made up of water... and a very small amount of proteins."
- gcb0 13y ago
  how does water and sugar gets acid?
  - dragonwriter 13y ago
    > how does water and sugar gets acid? Yogurt (which is what the whey is the result of straining) is not just water and sugar, it contains a number of other things -- notably, lactic acid.
    - gcb0 13y ago
      my confusion was mostly that the article claim the residue solution is pretty much water and sugar
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Milk + Lactobacillus = Yogurt, Water, Acid
mbreese 13y ago
Different kind of whey... (from the article) the whey used in protein supplements is sweet whey from cheese production.

od2m 13y ago

If this is the same whey as in whey protein… Whey prices are THROUGH THE ROOF the last couple of years owing to inflation and large purchasers drying up supply.

jff 13y ago
It's a different whey, although they're trying to use it for the same supplement market.
dragonwriter 13y ago
> If this is the same whey as in whey protein... Whey prices are THROUGH THE ROOF the last couple of years owing to inflation and large purchasers drying up supply. Whey protein is usually processed from whey that is a byproduct of cheesemaking; as the article notes, the acid whey from making Greek yogurt is much more acidic, and has much lower protein concentration; while it is probably possible to extract whey protein from it it is a much poorer source of it than the whey from cheesemaking (and given the apparently huge supply and the rather visible market for whey to supply the supplement, etc., industry, I suspect if it were even marginally economically viable for that use, we wouldn't have articles like the one here.)

StavrosK 13y ago

Huh, apparently Greek yogurt doesn't fall under the Protected Designation of Origin scheme (and I don't think the US follows that anyway), so it doesn't actually have to be Greek to be called Greek. Interesting.

greggman 13y ago
Neither does I assume "Italian Dressing", "French Dressing", "Greek Salad", and of course "French Fries" which apparently are actually Belgium
- StavrosK 13y ago
  Those are combinations of things. Greek yoghurt is a method of making yoghurt (and the resulting product), like Feta cheese, for example.
  - ceejayoz 13y ago
    French fries aren't a combination of things.
    - StavrosK 13y ago
      Neither is the Chinese wall. How does this have any bearing to my point above?
      - ars 13y ago
        That's a good question. What is your point anyway? How does being, or not being, a combination make any difference anyway?
      - ceejayoz 13y ago
        You said "Those are combinations of things." French fries are not. What is difficult to parse here?
  - ars 13y ago

jdietrich 13y ago

This article is complete bullshit. It presents the issue as if it's a sudden surprise problem, when in fact there are established markets for whey and whey derivatives. The global market for whey protein is worth $3.8bn. To call whey (even relatively poor quality whey) "waste" is ludicrous - it's a byproduct with an established commercial value. Acid whey requires more processing than sweet whey, but it's an established and well-understood problem for the dairy industry. The problem for the yoghurt producer is simply that liquid whey is right at the bottom of the value chain - it requires a great deal of processing to become $8/kg whey protein concentrate or $12/kg whey protein isolate. Yoghurt manufacturers may be extremely keen to move up the value chain and extract more profit from their whey byproducts, but there's no great market failure occurring here.

pessimizer 13y ago
I don't understand what you're saying here. If the cost of processing the acid whey is higher than the market price of what it's processed into, then it's waste, right? I can't think of any waste that can't be processed into something that can be sold, providing you don't mind losing a massive amount of money on the transaction.
VladRussian2 13y ago
my grandmother's ranch : milk produced by cows -> sell to cheese factory whey the factory returned back -> feed to pigs, chicken, turkey
- hencq 13y ago
  The article does mention that cheese making produces sweet whey as opposed to the acid whey that Greek yoghurt produces.
TezzellEnt 13y ago
From a broad search, it seems that much of the downstream market for whey byproduct of yogurt and cheese production has plenty of uses. In this article by the USDA (http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/mar08/whey.htm http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/mar08/whey.htm), it discusses dairy farm cooperatives turning the Lactose sugars, of which 5% of the "waste whey," is used for ethanol production. Whether there is a difference between acid or sweet whey, I am unsure, however there is certainly a demand for the byproducts of the dairy/cheese/yogurt industries.

beowulfey 13y ago

The presence of lactose made me curious as to whether all this whey could be used in ethanol production. It would help reduce the need for corn ethanol while taking care of this problem. Curiously, this possible solution wasn't mentioned in the article at all. Here is a white paper describing a fermentation process (pretty standard ethanol production, from the looks of it). http://nzic.org.nz/ChemProcesses/dairy/3H.pdf http://nzic.org.nz/ChemProcesses/dairy/3H.pdf And here is an excellent USDA review looking at a lot of the different solutions to this whey surplus: http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/RR214.pdf http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/pub/RR214.pdf

TezzellEnt 13y ago
In my cursory search on the matter (and comment a few moments ago to another reply), ethanol production was my first thought when dealing with the excess lactose. It seems that there are a few cooperatives that own a facility in California & Minnesota. I am still unsure of the difference between "sweet" whey & "acid" whey, I believe that they should be able to convert the lactose into a useable ethanol.

mvidal01 13y ago

Some people run thriving startups based on whey. http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=29643 http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=2964...

jaryd 13y ago
Thanks for that link--good read :)

nkozyra 13y ago

My tub of whey protein powder costs $50 for 5lbs. If this is becoming so endemic, please tell me where precisely to go so I can save barrels of money a year.

mgmeyers 13y ago
From the article: "Barbano, who specializes in filtration methods for separation and recovery of protein, has his sights set on the tiny amount of protein in acid whey. He believes it might be usable as an infant formula ingredient. But first Barbano has to figure out how to extract the protein in a cost-effective way, and his research is just getting underway."
- nkozyra 13y ago
  My comment was tongue-in-cheek. That said, I've known bodybuilders ever since they forced us to start working out freshman year and they'd drink 20 gallons of highly acidic fluid if it meant some protein was in there. Hell, you could market it as a miracle supplement.

nevster 13y ago

Did anyone else do a double-take at the picture half way through? For a split-second I thought it was Robert Scoble!

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

amurmann 13y ago

I actually was faced with the same problem a little while ago. I started making my own Greek yoghurt once a week at home. So I started having to throw out these big amounts of whey. That felt very wasteful, so I started to do some research into what I could do with the whey. It turns out to be a great substitute in many recipes that call for buttermilk (pancakes, mashed potatoes). It also is great in smoothies. Apparently you can even make ricotta cheese from it. Last weekend I actually still had enough yoghurt, but made yoghurt because I was out of whey! It's great stuff and I haven't even been able yet to make any ricotta, since I don't have enough left after all the other now mandatory use cases. I am really surprised that the whey is so acidic. Mine at least doesn't taste that sour. I would like some explanation for that. However, cultures used by these big corporations also aren't real, sustainable greek yoghurt cultures. You can use the culture from commercial yoghurt as a starter for your own yoghurt and go from there. However, the culture will die eventually, since they are bred for maximum consistent result in a laboratory like environment. I wonder if that has to do with it. The topic of fermentation is super interesting. I can throng lay recommend to everyone o read Sandor Katz's "Art of Fermentation". It's a great work about the history, culture and basic workings of fermentation.

dmor 13y ago

This reminds me of a client I had a long time ago who sold silane gas, which is the byproduct of making metallurgical grade silicon. It is a byproduct of semiconductor production (among other things) and very scary to store because it combusts upon contact with oxygen. So as you can imagine if there is a leak... it's bad news. In the 90s they had so much of this stuff and it was really expensive to store and not much could be done with it, by then they discovered it could be used to coat the glass exterior of entire skyscrapers to reduce glare, and to make solar panels, and many other things. I always think of this story when I hear about byproduct management problems, and hope they'll find a commercial solution - they just might invent something new and awesome out of necessity.

kissickas 13y ago

Why would it have to be farmers who make a capital investment to convert this stuff to methane? I would think the yogurt companies would just do it themselves and save on the shipping, nobody needs farmers to invest millions, just buy the manure (or I'm sure there's another way to do it).

DanBC 13y ago
Farmers have manure. Shipping that manure around doesn't make much sense. It's heavy, dirty, smelly, gloopy. Shipping whey makes more sense. It's heavy, but not as dirty or smelly or gloopy.

return0 13y ago

I 'm more interested on why hackers are interested in this article. Somebody will come up with a good idea on how to process the whey further. Yoghurt production certainly hasn't destroyed Greece until now, so there is a bit of sensationalism here as well.

dagurp 13y ago
Here in Iceland we drink it and use it to store food in the traditional way (don't see that catching on anywhere else though). The most interesting use of it though is in sports drinks. They've managed to make the whey taste ok and still keep the drink healthy. I'm sure we will see this elsewhere.

jasonkester 13y ago

Sounds like we've finally found a use for all those oceans we built. The problem with liquids like this that use up oxygen when you dump them in water is that they use up all the oxygen when you dump them in the pond. Dump them in a place with plenty of water and they find all the oxygen they need and happily degrade without killing all your fish. Back in my Environmental Engineer days, I worked on a study of Ethylene Glycol (the stuff they use do de-ice airplanes), and how it affected the local wetlands. The worry wasn't that it would get into the waterways. There's no stopping that if you spray thousands of gallons of it onto a runway. The worry was that those local waterways wouldn't disperse it fast enough for it to harmlessly degrade into weetabix and rainbows (or whatever similarly neutral stuff it turns into when you add water and oxygen to it) before it affected the critters in the pond. So it seems like a nice solution to this, that definitely won't fly if you tell anybody with an easy sense of environmental outrage and a disinclination to read a chemistry book, would be to load up a big boat full of it, steam well out to sea, and open the cork.

ozgung 13y ago

The only problem with "Greek Yogurt" is that there is no separate thing as Greek Yogurt. It's just a western marketing name for strained yogurt. Yogurt is a food of Turkish origin and even the words Yogurt and Chobani are directly from Turkish language. Yogurt and its derivatives are very common throughout the former Ottoman geography, from Balkans to Arabic countries. Does that really matter? Yes, if culture and history has any importance.

yareally 13y ago
Origins of yogurt in general go back much farther than the Ottomans though by at least 1500-3000 years. Though, you're correct that the word itself is Turkish. Also correct that it's basically called Greek Yogurt because marketers in the West thought it sounded better. In ancient Indian records, the combination of yogurt and honey is called "the food of the gods".[17] Persian traditions hold that "Abraham owed his fecundity and longevity to the regular ingestion of yogurt".[18] The oldest writings mentioning yogurt are attributed to Pliny the Elder, who remarked that certain "barbarous nations" knew how "to thicken the milk into a substance with an agreeable acidity".[19] The use of yogurt by medieval Turks is recorded in the books Diwan Lughat al-Turk by Mahmud Kashgari and Kutadgu Bilig by Yusuf Has Hajib written in the 11th century.[20][21] Both texts mention the word "yogurt" in different sections and describe its use by nomadic Turks.[20][21] The earliest yogurts were probably spontaneously fermented by wild bacteria in goat skin bags.[22] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogurt#History http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogurt#History
jacobr 13y ago
In Sweden there is both Turkish and Greek yoghurt. The Greek yoghurt is higher in protein and a bit more sour, iirc.

witek 13y ago

Better out than in, as Shrek says.

bjhoops1 13y ago

I read this article while throwing back some Oikos. So meta.

JasonFruit 13y ago

I use whey from Greek yoghurt for baking in recipes that call for buttermilk. Probably not a large-scale solution, but it works brilliantly on a small scale.

squozzer 13y ago

Any reason why they couldn't divert the "greek yogurt" whey into ice cream like they do for "ordinary whey"?

skaevola 13y ago
If you RTFA, it mentions that Greek Yogurt produces extremely acidic byproducts which are more difficult to deal with.

tripzilch 13y ago

In Switzerland and the Netherlands we use the milk whey to create a soft drink: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivella http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivella Afaik, it was indeed invented in order to find a use for this by-product. It tastes "a bit weird, but pretty good" (that's also their slogan, and it's quite accurate IMO :) )

graycat 13y ago

The article said that the whey was "toxic" because if put it in a lake or stream it will consume the oxygen and kill the fish. That's mostly just FUD, hype, and nonsense: The water treatment industry is very aware of 'biologic oxygen demand' (BOD). Basically, yes, decomposing some whey in a lake will consume some oxygen from the lake. Consume too much oxygen and then will kill the fish. Sure. But that doesn't make the whey "toxic". Indeed, lots of things go into the streams, rivers, and lakes that consume oxygen. If don't consume too much oxygen, then likely fine. No problem (at least about oxygen). And, of course, what consumes the whey is biologic activity that might make the water better for plants, fish, etc. Sure, go to a big city sewage processing plant. What do they do? Sure, bubble air through the dark liquid! Or, they follow the recipe, "Add air and stir."! Net, the article looks like traditional newsie stuff -- claim the sky is falling and get eyeballs and ad revenue. Smelly bait for the ad hook. Make people feel guilty from their 'sins' of their consumption of thick yogurt and what they pour down their drains. Deliberate, confused, nonsense guilt trip. Bummer. For over 20 years, I've poured lots of stuff down my kitchen drain. Too old, sour milk has been a common item. Much worse, when I feed canned cat food to my kitty cats, they often don't eat all of it, and, being smart little kitty cats, don't eat it at all after it becomes old and dry. So, then I have to clean out such food dishes for them. To do this I soak the dishes overnight in water with detergent, rinse the dishes, and flush the rest. And I'm 'destroying the 100% all-natural, pure, pristine, precious, sensitive, delicate planet'? I don't think so! Instead all the 'stuff' from the kitchen and bathrooms goes through big, white plastic pipes to a big concrete tank sunk in my backyard. The tank has some 'bugs' that reduce essentially everything into clear water, some methane gas, and a tiny quantity of solids. The gas floats off; the water goes into the drain field in my backyard; and the solids accumulate. The tank has been working fine for over 20 years without cleaning. For the water, the backyard loves it. Net, no worries. So, I'm not destroying the planet! And I'm not guilty.