Free The Whey Prescription by N.D. Christopher Vasey Page A

eczema), and for improving general health and well-being.
    Like many other remedies, the whey cure has experienced its times of glory and times of oblivion. Those times when the cure was abandoned were not due to the ineffectiveness of whey, but rather to problems involving its preservation—a dilemma that has now been resolved.
    Whey is an extremely perishable beverage, which must be consumed within nine to ten hours of its manufacture. Liquid whey quickly spoils, and changes in its taste and odor make it undrinkable. Now, thanks to the fabrication of whey in powder form, its benefits are available to everyone.
    In the eighteenth-and nineteenth-century health spas, a carefully timed system had to be put in place so that people wishing to take this cure could have whey at their disposal. Whey that had been prepared late at night was carried, at about 3 a.m., from remote mountain cheese makers and after a two- or three-hour walk reached the spa at the first gleams of dawn. The containers that held the whey were carefully wrapped in cloth so that the liquid would hold its heat while being transported and arrive still warm. A ringing bell announced the whey’s arrival and it was quickly poured into glasses, each holding about 1 / 4 liter (1 cup), that were lined up on tables for those following the cure. Given the fact that the cure consisted of increasing the quantity consumed each day and, depending on the case, ingesting eight to twelve glasses in a row, new glasses were continually being filled and a bell rang every quarter hour to announce that the time to drink the next glass had arrived.
    The whey was still fresh enough in the middle of the morning when the three hours necessary to drink a dozen glasses had elapsed. By the end of the morning the whey was no longer useable, and one would have to wait until the following morning for fresh whey to arrive.
    Today, the consumption of reconstituted whey from whey powder makes it easy to follow the cure throughout the day or simply to drink it occasionally for pleasure and general well-being.

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    What Is Whey?

    During the manufacture of cheese, milk is curdled by means of rennet. The milk coagulates and a hard part (casein) and a liquid part (whey, also called lactoserum) appear. Whey is therefore the liquid that escapes from the curd when it is left to drain. It is transparent, yellowish-green in color, and possesses a slightly tart flavor that is fairly pleasant.
    Whey can also be found in yogurt, which is another form of coagulated milk. The clear liquid that appears on the surface of yogurt when you take out a spoonful is whey. (However, the whey at the top of store-bought yogurt is not fresh and therefore is not beneficial.)
    Raw whole cow’s milk contains all the nutritional elements (proteins, vitamins, minerals, and so on) necessary for the growth of the baby calf. When this milk is curdled, these elements will be divided between the casein and the whey. The figures provided in the table below compare the nutrients found in raw milk to the amount of each nutritional element that remains in whey after the casein has been removed.
NUTRITIONAL COMPOSITION PER 100 GRAMS

 
Raw Milk
Liquid Whey
Water
87.0 grams
93.3 grams
Carbohydrates
4.7 grams
4.7 grams
Lipids
3.8 grams
0.3 gram
Proteins
3.3 grams
0.9 gram
    This table clearly shows the distinctive characteristics of whey. Whey is poor in fats (lipids) and proteins because these two substances primarily remain in the cheese. But it is the exact opposite regarding sugar (carbohydrates): only a negligible amount remains in the cheese and most of it can be found in the whey.
    It is important to note that although the protein content of whey is quite small, these proteins are of very high biological value. Furthermore, the sugar that is contained in whey is lactose, a very physiological sugar that the body finds quite easy to metabolize.
    When fresh liquid whey is transformed to make powdered whey, the proportion of these