The sports nutrition market, once regarded as a niche segment, has developed in recent years to a more mainstream market positioning, with increasing levels of product convenience and taste playing a strong role in driving this growth.
A growing interest in understanding the special nutritional requirements of athletes has spilled over to meeting the needs of ordinary individuals who exercise regularly as part of a general health and fitness programme.
Recent scandals involving the use of drugs in various sports have also led people to seek more natural, sustainable and ethical solutions to fuelling and supporting the human body before, during and after exercise and training.
Protein is the basic building block of muscle, as well as being needed for many critical processes in the body, including the functioning of the brain, heart, liver and skin. The International Society of Sports Nutrition maintains that individuals engaged in regular exercise training require more dietary protein than sedentary individuals, recommending regular protein intake of between 1.4 and 2g per kg of bodyweight per day.¹
Carbohydrates also have a key energy generation role to play in sports nutrition, but protein is required specifically to feed the muscles. A 2007 study published in Applied Physiology, Nutrition and Metabolism showed that when a group of young, resistance-trained men consumed 10g of whey protein plus carbohydrates, a greater increase in muscle protein synthesis resulted from their resistance training compared with when they consumed a carbohydrate-only beverage.²
Whey protein is one of the richest dietary sources of branched chain amino acids, which are required daily in the diet to help support the growth, maintenance and repair of muscles, the skin and other organs in the body. Leucine is one essential amino acid that stands out for its ability to stimulate muscle protein synthesis, and whey protein contains more leucine (14%) than either meat or soy protein.
Whey is often referred to as a ‘fast’ protein due to its ability to provide rapid nourishment to help muscles recover after exercise.
Research has shown that after strenuous exercise, our immune system is often weakened and we’re less able to mount a defence against colds and other forms of infection. Glutamine is a key nutrient for strengthening the immune system and whey protein can promote the synthesis of glutamine and the antioxidant glutathione. This provides a combined approach to boosting the immune system and the body’s natural defences.
Whey’s high amino acid score, high digestibility and neutral taste, combine to make it a highly favoured and convenient source of protein for those engaging in intense physical activity. It’s rightly perceived as a completely natural product filtered from milk, as opposed to a highly processed synthetic dietary supplement.
Additionally, for those focusing on shedding kilos as part of a fitness regime, whey protein, with its very low fat score, has been shown to enhance satiety and help retain lean body mass while reducing overall weight.
Volac has more than 40 years’ experience in whey processing and nutritional health with particular expertise in the sports and active nutrition marketplace. This enables the company to advise dairy processors on the best type of whey to select for their particular application.
After filtration, if the whey solution contains a total solids concentration of about 10–25%, it will produce a whey powder containing approximately 35-65% protein. To obtain a higher concentration of protein, additional processing is required to further reduce levels of lactose, minerals and water. However, nutritional integrity requires that the whey is processed using a method that preserves it as far as possible in its natural state.
Volac’s Ultra Whey 80 and Ultra Whey 80 LF are both whey protein concentrate powders. Ultra Whey 80 LF is a defatted product containing less than 1% fat and typically 80% protein, and is available in both standard and instantised forms.
Whey protein isolate is the purest form of whey protein, and therefore contains a higher percentage of protein than WPC. It has been processed further using a combination of cross-flow ultra-filtration and micro-filtration techniques to give a concentration percentage greater than 90. As the remaining lactose has all but been removed, the isolate offers the highest levels of whey protein with the lowest levels of fat and carbohydrate.
Whey protein has traditionally been offered in ready-to-mix powder form. However, speed and convenience is the name of the game. Volactive’s Ultra Whey HS is a heat-stable isolate that enables beverage manufactures to add the protein to clear, ready-to-drink beverages. Volactive Heat Stable is added at the production stage to clear acidic beverages and dissolves completely. Clear fruit sports drinks can now contain protein, as well as carbohydrate, thus providing nutritional balance in a bottle.
Dairy processors can now capitalise on the functional benefits of whey protein as an essential ingredient for the sports nutrition market through the increasing range of application formats available to them.
¹ International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: protein and exercise
² Miller SL et al, Independent and combined effects of amino acids and glucose after resistance exercise. Med Sci Sports Exercise 35(3): 449-455, 2003.
Mark Neville is marketing manager of Volac, a leader in the application of dairy nutrition, manufacturing and supplying performance nutrition products around the world.
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