If you're enjoying the convenience of whey protein, you may be paying for it with your health. Whey protein has nearly become ubiquitous in today's fast paced culture, especially among athletes and weightlifters. Even if you're not consuming whey protein powder directly, it's being used in many of the processed foods and snack bars that you may be eating. Whether you're trying to up your protein intake, add convenience to your diet, or both, your efforts may be backfiring on you.

How About Some Waste For Breakfast?

Whey is the liquid that is left over from the milk curdling process that's used to make other dairy products. The dairy industry originally considered it a waste product and was dumping it just as you and I dump our garbage. That was until someone came up with the idea of processing it even further and selling it.

The Truth About Dairy

Processed foods are always lower in nutritional quality than natural whole foods and whey is a processed product that comes from pasteurized milk. The pasteurization process heats the milk to high temperatures to kill bacteria. All of the enzymes and some of the vitamins in the milk are destroyed and some of the amino acids are altered. As a result, your body has to do more work and consume more of it's own resources to digest and assimilate it, and a good portion of the protein and other nutrients will not even be usable. If your body does make use of the altered proteins, it may lead to cell malfunction, and with enough cell malfunction, you begin to malfunction.

In addition to whey being a processed and low quality source of nutrients, many people have intolerance or sensitivity to dairy. If this is the case, it is causing intestinal inflammation that is compromising digestion even further and setting the stage for health issues.

Quality vs Quantity

Protein powders and snack bars are especially popular among athletes and weightlifters. What's ironic is that because of the additional physiological burdens they are putting on their bodies, it's even more important for them to consume high quality nutrition, but instead, they are consuming excessive amounts of whey and embracing quantity over quality.

The bottom line is that the high quality of nutrition from natural whole foods can't be beat. They provide high quality nutrients in the exact forms that our bodies have evolved to expect them in. Not only is the nutrition in processed products like whey altered, less usable, and potentially harmful to our bodies, much of the nutrition is destroyed during the processing. So if you don't like the idea of sacrificing your health for convenience, and especially if you're an athlete or weightlifter looking to improve results, seriously consider natural whole foods over the convenience of processed foods and powders.