Whey to go!

One of our lovely Twitter followers, @Reddoorgarden, recently pondered the use of the whey from their cheese making. A retweet later and The Big Cheese Community was offering advice on different ways to use leftover whey. This seemed a good idea for a blog post.

Whey: what is it?

Whey is a liquid by-product of cheese making, gathered after milk has been curdled and strained. Whey consists of milk sugars, minerals, albuminous protein, and of course water. It contains all the essential amino acids and as such is often used in sport supplements.

Whey uses.

Let’s first have a look at the uses suggested by our wonderful Twitter followers. @ShebbearCheese suggested bread making, and it does indeed make a fine loaf as demonstrated by this photo sent in to us by Andrea of a loaf she’d made using her leftover whey.

Both @ShebbearCheese and @DerekCorner suggested using it as feed for garden plants. Whey contains around 10% milk solids, and combined with its other nutrients makes a wonderful all purpose fertilizer, and finally @MariaMCasey tells us that whey is fantastic in smoothies!

You can bathe in whey! Seriously! It contains lactic acid, which is one of the alpha hydroxy acids found in many lavish beauty products. It makes for a wonderful soothing bath and leaves you skin feeling fresh and invigorated.

It can be used as a wonderful homemade stock by simply replacing water with whey. Delicious!

Finally, you can feed it to your pets and livestock. For the same reasons why whey is beneficial to humans, so it is to animals.

Do you have any other uses for whey? Let us know in the comments below.

Bye for now.

Em x