Did you know that a diet high in potassium is linked to many health benefits? Potassium plays a role in reducing blood pressure and fluid retention to providing protection against strokes and kidney stones, to name just a few examples. In our daily diets, potassium can be found in numerous foods, including dairy where it helps ensure its quality, taste, and nutritional value. Let’s take a look at the ways potassium hydroxide (KOH) from Vynova plays a key role in dairy products by focusing on KOH usage for producing whey protein, colouring cheese naturally, and acting an emulsifying agent.
Whey protein: promoting healthy muscles
Whey has gone from being a cumbersome by-product produced by the cheese industry that was mainly used as cattle feed to being welcomed as an essential source of nutrition for athletes.
Generated in large quantities during the production of cheese, whey is the residual liquid from milk coagulation. New techniques that use potassium hydroxide enable the separation of whey into its main parts (94% water, sugar (lactose), protein, and a little fat) to extract whey protein. Whey protein, which contains a large amount of potassium hydroxide, is then used in a range of foods, including supplements for bodybuilders and infant milk.
Whey proteins are considered ‘fast’ proteins as they pass through the stomach much quicker than caseins, resulting in their rapid absorption in the body. Experts believe that whey proteins boost your immune system and help rebuild muscle fibres after strenuous exercise which explains their popularity as a supplement.
Natural colouring of cheese
When you look at your favourite food, your mouth often starts to water in preparation for its taste. In practice, this means that the appearance of food is critically important. And that’s also true for cheese and the expectations consumers have of its colour. Naturally, the colour of cheese would change slightly during the year depending on the cow’s feed, with fresh summer grass resulting in a more orange colour which is missing or significantly reduced at other times of the year.
Using a similar technique to the one used to extract whey protein, KOH is used to increase the solvability of the cheese solution to enable the colouring of cheese with norbixin. In fact, this technique is also used for colouring fats, butter, cosmetics, textiles, pharmaceuticals, and other food products.
Tasty milk thanks to KOH
It’s a well-known fact that it is difficult to smoothly mix water and fats. This means that milk, which is primarily water, doesn’t combine well with fatty substances that are essential for delivering the taste that people enjoy.
The solution is an emulsifier to ensure that milk and fats combine into one emulsified mass. KOH is one of the most common emulsifiers used in the dairy industry as it maintains the essential characteristics and taste of milk. Moreover, KOH also allows to regulate the acidity (pH) of the product.
Contact Vynova
Vynova is a leading European supplier of potassium derivatives with manufacturing sites in Belgium and France. Our potassium derivatives are used in numerous applications that benefit health and improve our quality of life – like potassium hydroxide used in the dairy industry. Find out more about potassium derivatives from Vynova or contact one of our sales representatives here.
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