In years past, whey was viewed and used as a waste product and sprayed back onto farmer's crops to add nitrogen back into the soil. Sometime in the early 80's it was discovered that whey was a very high quality protein, unique in its amino acid content and biologically active. It was quickly discovered that whey outperformed the gold standard protein, egg white. In fact, on the biological value scale, which measures how much protein consumed is actually absorbed or retained and used by the body, egg white is 100 and whey is 107, so whey really is the gold standard for high protein quality.

In years past, whey was viewed and used as a waste product and sprayed back onto farmer's crops to add nitrogen back into the soil. Sometime in the early 80's it was discovered that whey was a very high quality protein, unique in its amino acid content and biologically active. It was quickly discovered that whey outperformed the gold standard protein, egg white. In fact, on the biological value scale, which measures how much protein consumed is actually absorbed or retained and used by the body, egg white is 100 and whey is 107, so whey really is the gold standard for high protein quality.

Whey, in its raw liquid form, contains lactose, fat and cholesterol. So before spray drying if somebody consumed whey protein it also meant one would take in a significant amount of lactose and fat. Sometime in the mid-80's two processes were discovered that could concentrate the protein content of the liquid stream, then spray dried to remove the water. One was ion-exchange and the other was micro-filtration. Both these methods consisted of removing the non-protein components so they could be spray dried into a highly concentrated whey protein powder.

Two whey protein powders were named: Whey Protein Concentrate and Whey Protein Isolate. Whey Protein Concentrate has a protein content of about 80% and Whey Protein Isolate has a protein content of 90%. New technology developed in 2005 can now isolate whey protein in excess of 95%. is a complete protein, which means it contains all the essential amino acids needed for muscle growth and repair from stressful events, i.e. resistance training, endurance training, life-stressors.

Whey is made up of many protein fractions. The main two are Beta-Lactoglobulin and Alpha-Lactalbumin. These two proteins alone make up 75% of the protein content in whey. Other protein fractions include Glycomacropeptide, Lactoferrin, Bovine Serum Albumin, Immunoglobulins, Lactoperoxidase, Lysozyme, Relaxin, Gamma-globulins, Lactollin and B-Microglobulin. However, new fractions will be discovered with the progression in new protein isolation techniques.