High Protein Option For People Living In USA

haidut

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Hi all,

I currently reside in the US and have been constantly trying to come up with ways to eat a diet close to Peat's principles (especially high protein), while minimizing time and cost spent in getting it. While there is no substitute for home-made food, often I have so little free time available that I would prefer if I could just grab a ready product and not spend time preparing it. The main problem that I have with Ray's diet is that it is just not always easy for me to obtain 150g+ of protein in a form ready for ingestion or packaged in a way that can be taken to work. I still can't get used to the routine of drinking a galon of milk a day, as it is not very convenient to carry this every day to work as well as deflect questions from pesky coworkers.
I think Ray has said several times that yogurt is OK to eat as long as it is strained so that both the lactic acid and the acidic whey are removed from the final product. I think I have found jut such a product that is quite high in protein and it sold in my local CVS. Here is a link to their product line:
http://bmoreorganic.com/products/

As you can see from the labels, the product is organic, has no fat, just protein and "sugar" and only a handful of actual ingredients all of which are known to me. The products are made with Skyr, which is a type of Icelandic milk product representing a hybrid between yogurt and cottage cheese:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyr
"...The skyr is then strained through fabric to remove the whey (mysa in Icelandic) and the milk solids retained."
In summary, Skyr is more like cottage cheese (b/c it has been processed with rennet and has had whey removed) with some yogurt bacteria added (not sure why the bacteria is even added as it doesn't seem to add anything). So, if the above Wikipedia statement is true then it looks like we have a candidate for high-protein Peat-approved type of food (Skyr) with some commercial offerings available in CVS.
Disclaimer: I am not in any way affiliated with the company that makes the Skyr products, and in fact I do have some reservations about the product. I don't make any money from writing about their products or any other product for that matter. I don't mention the company name or product name on purpose so that Google does not pick up on this blog post and raise their rankings based on our discussions here.

I have bought the products from CVS and they are indeed a lot less sour than regular yogurt but I can still feel some acidity. I do feel fine when I drink that Skyr product, with the exception of a mild headache which clears up within 30min of ingesting the product. I am not sure if this is due to any lactic acid leftover or the yogurt bacteria inside. Ray wrote in one of his articles how yogurt bacteria gave him headaches and how the yogurt bacteria may be a cause of SLE (lupus). Since casein raises insulin 2-3 times more than meat protein does, my headache may be also due to a drop in blood sugar. The product only contains leftover sugar from the fermentation process and also some stevia, so it is essentially sugarless and does need to be taken with a lot of sugar.
I will continue to experiment with this product and see if I can get the headache to disappear. I hope it is b/c of low sugar since that would be very easy to remediate. Otherwise I will also try to somehow get rid of the bacteria in the product, which can be done either by taking small amounts of antibiotic or adding the antibiotic in the product itself. Yet another method would be to heat the product to 75 degrees Celsius for 30 seconds. In a regular yogurt the heating method would cause syneresis, but since Skyr is also a cheese the syneresis should not occur in this case.
So far I have been drinking 3-4 of these a day and eating very little other food so that I can isolate the effects of this product on any health paramaters. If nothing else, with 120g+ of protein from the Skyr products at least satiety is where it should be and I don't get random urges during the day to binge eat this or that kind of food.
I will keep everybody posted on how the experiment progresses.
Thoughts?
 

superhuman

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Thats cool

I have been lurking around with Skyr myself but havent bought it yet since its a yoghurt. Its very expensive here in Norway compared to skim milk
 

Dutchie

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I dont live in the US but you can easily make cottage cheese/Panir from every type of milk you prefer.
 
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haidut

haidut

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I think the Wikipedia entry says that Icelandic Skyr is actually much more like cottage cheese, while other Scandinavian countries like Norway use the word Skyr to refer to any type of yogurt.
As far as making cottage cheese - thanks Dutchie, I will try making it myself. My post was more about the folks that don't have the time to make it themselves and would be OK with using a commercial product. I know I am one of them sometimes:):
 

charlie

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Interesting. Seems like the most problematic part of it would be the bacteria. I just stopped raw milk and now using pasteurized store bought milk and seem to be doing better on it despite the added vitamins. I am thinking the bacteria from the raw was too much for me, so the store bought is better. Never in a million years have thought this to be the case, unless I experienced it myself. So I would wonder about the bacteria in the Skyr if it could be too much for some.
 

juanitacarlos

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haidut, could you try straining the skyr further with a cheese cloth to see if any more liquid is removed?
 

superhuman

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Dutchie isnt that very time consuming? also how much cottage cheese to you get out of 1 quart of milk? in terms of nutrition, protein, carbs etc
 

Mittir

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superhuman said:
Dutchie isnt that very time consuming? also how much cottage cheese to you get out of 1 quart of milk? in terms of nutrition, protein, carbs etc
It is really quite simple. First step is to heat the milk, some people boil the milk
and then cool it down a little bit before adding lemon juice or vinegar.
Some people just heat the milk till there is small bubble on the side of the pan
and then add acid. Then you can use strainer or cheese cloth or slotted spoon to
scoop out the curdled milk. Add some sugar, honey or fruits and it is ready.
If you want soft creamy consistency you have to avoid using excess acid
and add cold water into pan or bowl just after milk is curdled.
Easiest way is to warm a bowl of milk in mircowave and then add acid.
Make sure that milk is not boiled to the point of overflowing.
Here is a youtube video on making farmer's cheese. You do not have to add cream.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WROtGORNefA
You will get about 25 grams of protein from 1 quart of milk.
Nutrient content is very similar to cottage cheese.
Most nutrient are lost in the liquid whey portion.
It is almost pure protein with little calcium, phosphorus and
other vitamin and minerals.
http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dai ... ducts/15/2
 

superhuman

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Thats cool Mittir.

So i can make it from skimmed milk wich means no fat :)

Also so some 7 grams of protein will be lost from the milk also do you know the ratio thats left in terms of calcium to phosphorus? since milk has 1,2:1 or something calcium to phos but cottage cheese in stores have 1:2 ratio.
Oh it says that on the analysis as well. Will that always happen even if you make it yourself?

That sounds super eazy and for sure im gonna make that stuff :) thanx a ton

In terms of "healthy" what is the best to use, lemon juice or vinegar or acid?

When you remove the whey and take the cheese is there a faster way to just let it hang and dry out?
 

Mittir

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@superhuman
Most people use low fat milk. I never tried with skimmed milk. But it should work
with skimmed milk too. Lemon is more natural and RP warns against possible allergenic contamination in industrial vinegar. He recommends distilled
white vinegar free of any additives.
I do not see any difference between lemon juice and vinegar in cheese making.
For quick meal i just wash the cheese in cold water and eat right away with
added sugar or honey. I like the soft texture of fresh curd.
I think you will need to hang dry if you plan to preserve that for more than few days.
If i plan to eat later then i add the curd to a cup of milk with sugar and refrigerate.
This keeps the curd soft and the end result is a very tasty dessert.
 
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haidut

haidut

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ttramone said:
haidut, could you try straining the skyr further with a cheese cloth to see if any more liquid is removed?


I did strain it once, and I did collect some water but it had almost no acidity and that tells me most of the lactic acid had been already strained during making the product.
As far as the bacteria, I think Skyr has less bacteria added than traditional yogurt and the bacteria Skyr is made with is typically L. Bulgaricus. As a Bulgarian native I grew up eating a lot of this bacteria, so I think I have developed tolerance or it is a placebo effect preventing me from reacting badly to anything from the motherland:):
I heated the Skyr to 75 degrees Celsius for 30 seconds and that should kill even more bacteria, so now it tastes almost like icecream when chilled. Pretty tasty actually, especially when flavored.
 

superhuman

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Mittir: cool i made it today from 1 quart skimmed milk and heated it up till it started bubbling added lemon juice and let took it off and let it sit while i stirred around with a tablespoon.

Let some cold water run through and finnished. I burned it a little in the beginning or in the bottom of the caserole there was burned milk. But yeah was very little cottage cheese from 1 quart milk but tasted ok. No acid taste or salt what so ever so guess i have to add a little salt to it.
 

Mittir

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@superhuman
It looks really odd how little cheese is there from a quart of milk.
I use this cheese to increase my protein intake, a lot like gelatin powder.
Make sure you get calcium from other sources if you use
this as main source of dairy.
 

superhuman

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Mittir; yeah its a great boost in protein if it contains 25grams but why is it alot smaller then say the cottage cheese you get in the store that has the same amount of protein?

yeah i drink milk and take eggshell calcium and all that if i do alot of this :D
 

Mittir

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superhuman said:
Mittir; yeah its a great boost in protein if it contains 25grams but why is it alot smaller then say the cottage cheese you get in the store that has the same amount of protein?

yeah i drink milk and take eggshell calcium and all that if i do alot of this :D

I believe it is the water content in cottage cheese that makes it look bigger.
You also can increase water content of farmer's cheese.
I do not know the exact instruction about it , but after months of making this
i know now when to add acid and when to remove the curd.
It is better to add acid slowly while stirring the milk.
Just make sure that whey portion of the liquid is bit greenish when
curdling has completed. I warm the milk in a regular pot and then
pour milk into a glass bowl. Just a precaution to make sure
acid does not leach anything from the pot.
If you heat the milk beyond boiling point and then cool it down before
adding acid, this will increase protein recovery up to 95 percent.
But this will also increase tryptophan content. RP thinks
low tryptophan content of some cheese has better amino acid ratio.
 

Mittir

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superhuman said:
Thanx bro.

How much lemon juice or vinegar do you use for each quart of milk?

It varies a lot. I start with a large lemon and sometime i need to use half of it
and other times i need more than 1 . I have also read at cheese making websites
that you do not want to use too much acid as that will break down casein
and increase calcium loss. Idea is to get milk curdled with minimum amount of
acid.
 

superhuman

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Finally i found the thread.
Made cottage cheese from 2 liters of skimmed milk, used 1 dl white vinegar. Maybe i should try and use less vinegar last time and see how that goes. Results was good maybe a little dry.
So 25 grams of protein in 1 Liter of skimmed milk made to cottage cheese, how much carbs is left then in the cottage cheese?
 

SaltGirl

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Glad to see one of the more traditional food of my country get some attention. :D

One of the ways Icelanders eat Skyr is to take a big pack of Skyr, then add some milk(or cream if you're feeling rich) and then add sugar to taste. I'd say it's even very Peat-y way to eat it. It's only in recent years this way of eating Skyr has gone to the way side as consumers have been offered new Skyr products that sadly contain additives and most often artificial sweeteners rather than real sugar. You can still get the classic Skyr though.
 

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