
Greek Yogurt’s Dark Side - palidanx
http://modernfarmer.com/2013/05/whey-too-much-greek-yogurts-dark-side/
======
simonsarris
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)>

~~~~

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>

~~~
rayiner
> 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.

~~~
Dylan16807
1\. You assume she's not paying for sewage processing.

2\. Acid whey is likely to be completely harmless in small amounts, and is
certainly less of an issue than many things going down the drain like soap.

~~~
auctiontheory
If every household (instead of buying a factory product) is pouring homemade
whey down the sink, it's not "in small amounts." It's simply distributing the
source of the pollution.

~~~
Dylan16807
That's still a very small concentration, because it's distributed.

Acid whey is not a pollutant. It's something you don't want high
concentrations of, but low concentrations can be _literally_ harmless. And it
doesn't build up over time.

Not everything is a tragedy of the commons.

~~~
roel_v
So all the industrial producers should do is get massive amounts of water, mix
their acid whey with it, then use that mixture to irrigate the larger area
around their plants? Maybe just inject their whey into irrigation systems at
the point they pump up their water? (hint: no that is not a solution)

Of course the whey is not the pollutant, it's the acids in it. Low
concentrations of _anything_ are harmless.

~~~
Dylan16807
>Low concentrations of _anything_ are harmless.

That is a true and useless statement. By the same token high concentrations of
_anything_ are harmful but nobody is going to call water a pollutant. The
question is about why and how something is harmful and whether it builds up.
First off, why are you saying the acid is the problem? From my reading,
talking about decomposition sapping oxygen, it sounds like it's the sugar and
the fact that it's a food. And food isn't a pollutant. You leave it alone, it
rots, nobody is harmed unless you dump large amounts of it in one spot. Now
let's contrast with an actual pollutant like smoke. A whole lot of people
emitting small amounts of smoke _does_ build up, and it lingers. It causes
direct harmful effects.

------
jdietrich
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.

~~~
VladRussian2
my grandmother's ranch :

milk produced by cows -> sell to cheese factory

whey the factory returned back -> feed to pigs, chicken, turkey

~~~
hencq
The article does mention that cheese making produces sweet whey as opposed to
the acid whey that Greek yoghurt produces.

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ggchappell
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?

~~~
maxerickson
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.

------
jasonkester
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.

------
guard-of-terra
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
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
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.

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ozgung
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
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>

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dmor
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.

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mvidal01
Some people run thriving startups based on whey.
[http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=2964...](http://www.thedailypage.com/isthmus/article.php?article=29643)

~~~
jaryd
Thanks for that link--good read :)

------
amurmann
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.

------
tripzilch
In Switzerland and the Netherlands we use the milk whey to create a soft
drink: <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 :) )

------
return0
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
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.

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beowulfey
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>

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>

~~~
TezzellEnt
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.

------
graycat
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.

------
StavrosK
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
Neither does I assume "Italian Dressing", "French Dressing", "Greek Salad",
and of course "French Fries" which apparently are actually Belgium

~~~
StavrosK
Those are combinations of things. Greek yoghurt is a method of making yoghurt
(and the resulting product), like Feta cheese, for example.

~~~
ceejayoz
French fries aren't a combination of things.

~~~
StavrosK
Neither is the Chinese wall. How does this have any bearing to my point above?

~~~
ars
That's a good question.

What is your point anyway? How does being, or not being, a combination make
any difference anyway?

------
ZirconCode
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.

~~~
ars
> .. the argument against nuclear energy; it produces too much waste.

??? Nuclear power produces less waste than any other energy source on earth -
including solar and wind. And coal produces more nuclear waste (by volume, not
intensity) than nuclear power does.

~~~
r00fus
Nuclear power generates a large amount of waste heat - which, in turn,
acidifies local waterways. Nuclear power, even with subsidies, to be
profitable/feasible, requires a very large amount of fresh water (or de-
salinated sea water).

It's actually a bigger problem than whey - there's no market to absorbe the
waste output.

~~~
ars
> large amount of waste heat - which, in turn, acidifies local waterways

Say what??? That makes no sense. Do you really believe that, or did you typo?

Yes, nuclear power does need a heat dump, but the waste heat has only a local
effect on the water in the close vicinity.

You understand that it doesn't really consume the water right (except for a
small amount that evaporates)? It just dumps heat in it, then sends it
downstream, which isn't great for fish, but it's not terrible either - the
effects are minimal, and local only, by the time the water flows a bit
downstream it has cooled off back to the normal temperature.

And you can use sea water, the salt doesn't effect the cooling ability, but I
don't think there are any plants near coastlines.

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kissickas
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
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.

------
imissmyjuno
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>

~~~
leoh
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
how does water and sugar gets acid?

~~~
dragonwriter
> 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
my confusion was mostly that the article claim the residue solution is pretty
much water and sugar

------
od2m
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.

~~~
dragonwriter
> 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.)

------
JasonFruit
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.

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

~~~
guyzero
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.

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

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

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

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bjhoops1
I read this article while throwing back some Oikos. So meta.

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nkozyra
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
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
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.

------
witek
Better out than in, as Shrek says.

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

