Ever wonder what the nursery rhyme means when Little Miss Muffett is eating her curds and whey? Well, a lot of the hardcore lifters and exercise folks out there should know; they’re drinking copious amounts of it after all their workouts.

The basics behind a protein shake is that they help your muscles heal and grow after you’ve been working out; it also is claimed to have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. So, it’s usually a good idea to have this after your workout routine.

Whey protein is actually surprisingly easy to make, a lot cheaper than the stuff you buy in the stores, and the leftover ingredients can be made to make fun things like cheese.

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 quart or liter of milk (you can add more or less depending on how much you want to make… just adjust the ratios)

a saucepan

vinegar or lemon juice (about 2 tablespoons)

strainer

paper towels or a cheese cloth

Any flavoring or spices you want

1) Get your milk and start to boil it on a medium to low heat. Keep a close eye on it because you don’t want it to get too hot.

2) When you start to notice a bunch of bubbles around the rim of the sauce pan add the vinegar or lemon juice and stir it around. The mixture should separate pretty quickly into curds and whey. If it doesn’t just add a little more vinegar or lemon juice until it does. The curds are the solid looking things and the whey is the liquid.

3) Get a strainer (cover it in paper towels or cheese cloth if you want to keep the curds and make it into cheese). Separate the curds from the whey. Let the whey cool down in the fridge for a while and then add any ingredients. Some suggestions for flavoring: Nutmeg, cinnamon, honey, chocolate… just test it out and see what works for you. The taste might be different for some people if it is, just dilute it with something else like water, or juice.

This is the same stuff you’ll buy in the store except it’s not dehydrated and probably won’t have any weird additives that’ll give you a gorilla back. Enjoy!

*Editors note: According to this blog post, “Whey is the fluid by product of cheese manufacture. It is produced in far greater volume than cheese, the ration of whey to cheese being about 10:1. For numerous reasons, whey is underutilized and not more than half of the United States production used. The rest, amounting to billion of pounds represents a waste disposable problem.

Considering the growing rate of cheese production and the ever-tightening constraints in the disposal of processing plant effluents, the problem of what to do with whey is one of major proportions. Whey comprises about 5% lactose, 2% other milk components and 93% water.”

So, a majority of the liquid is water and 2% of it is probably the proteins you would normally get from a whey protein shake. Still makes an easy drink, but it’s definitely not as strong as the concentrated form you can get at the store. According to Wikipedia (I know, I know…), “whey protein can be simply processed by drying…” There are other more complicated ways as well. Anyone have any ideas on the best way to make a concentrated form of this?