Whey Protein Isolate, Unflavoured

Details

One ingredient: cross-flow microfiltered whey protein isolate, unflavoured. Protein powder is among the most adulterated things on the Indian shelf, and the trick is not crude. Kjeldahl and Dumas, the two methods every certificate quotes, do not measure protein. They burn or digest the sample, measure nitrogen, and multiply by a factor. Anything nitrogen-bearing therefore reads as protein. Glycine is 18.7 percent nitrogen against 15.7 percent for whey protein, so a kilo of glycine bought cheap adds more to the reading than a kilo of whey does. Taurine is 11.2 percent, creatine is 32 percent, and the extreme versions use non-protein nitrogen that is not food at all. That is amino spiking, and a Kjeldahl certificate is structurally unable to see it. The number on this pouch is not a Kjeldahl number. It comes from total amino acid analysis after hydrolysis, which counts the amino acids one by one and sums them. A free amino acid can only count as its own mass in that method, so a spike costs the same as what it delivers and there is nothing left to gain.

• 27.0 g protein per weighed 30 g scoop, which is 90.0 percent of the powder by weight
• Counted by amino acid analysis, AOAC 994.12, and cross-checked against Kjeldahl. Kjeldahl reads 27.2 g, the amino acid sum is 27.0 g, a gap of 0.2 g. A wide gap is the signature
• Free amino acids not above 0.5 g per 100 g of protein, on an unhydrolysed extract. This is the number a spike moves first, and it is on the certificate
• Full eighteen amino acid profile below. Glycine 1.7 g per 100 g protein, which is the natural whey figure. Spiked lots commonly read five to twelve
• Whey protein isolate, 100 percent of the powder. Isolate means not below 90 percent protein by weight, which is the legal line between isolate and an 80 percent concentrate, and this tests at 90.0
• Lactose 0.3 g per scoop, 1.0 percent by weight, tested. Cross-flow microfiltration is what takes it out, and it is a figure rather than the word low
• No added sugar, no sucralose, no stevia, no flavour, no colour, no maltodextrin, no creamer, no free amino acids, no added enzymes
• Scoop weight is a weight and not a volume. 30 g plus or minus 1 g, and worth checking on a kitchen scale once, because a short scoop is the quiet version of the same trick
• Unflavoured means it tastes faintly of milk and slightly salty. Nothing is in the pouch to fix that, and it will not mix into water as smoothly as a sweetened powder does
• This is a food that tops up protein intake. It is not a meal replacement and not a medicine, and it treats nothing