Since Greek yogurt is so healthy for people, you may be wondering how it could possibly be so bad for the planet. Well, the answer lies not only in the yogurt itself, but how it's made:
Most people who eat Greek yogurt crave its thickness – but there’s a dirty secret as to how it got that way. It takes four pounds of milk to make one pound of Greek yogurt, and anyone who took high school chemistry knows that those other three pounds don’t just disappear. The three pounds taken away become a highly acidic whey product that isn’t fit for human consumption. Companies have to pay farms to take the whey off of their hands.
Some farmers have become creative with this acidic whey. Since yogurt is known to contain healthy gut bacteria, it can be used to feed cattle or generate energy. However, there’s only so many cows to feed from a gigantic industry-produced waste, so there’s a huge amount of acidic whey that is building up.
This whey could be harmful to the environment, and in fact if it was dumped and ended up in the oceans, it could deplete the water's oxygen and cause massive deaths among fish and other sea life. Solutions are being sought for this potentially dangerous whey, and the answer may lie in how the whey byproduct from cheese is dealt with — by turning it into protein powders!
Wow… That Is Disappointing!
We were very disappointed to learn that our Greek yogurt — which we have all the time — may actually be dangerous for the environment and for wildlife. However, we're glad we know the truth so we can adjust our diet accordingly.
In the meanwhile, we'll hope they find a solution for the whey problem very soon!
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Article Source: Spoon University
Photo: Susanna Mostaghim
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