Bioactive Peptides with Health Benefit and their Differential Content in Whey of Different Origin.

The type and composition of whey at dairy plants mainly depends upon the processing techniques resulting from caseins removal during cheese-making. The content and composition of whey proteins from goat, sheep camel, mare and donkey differ consistently from whey protein content in cow milk. Whey proteins proteolysis generates smaller peptides some of which possess beneficial biological activities, and their total content is influenced by whey origin and composition. The industrial exploitation of whey proteins may follow two approaches. From one side, following the principle of sustainable economy and waste recycling the industry could exploit the high amounts of whey by-products as source of valuable peptides. On the other side, a different approach has been pursued through extraction of individual proteins from milk or whey consisting in chitosan addition to milk, acidification, centrifugation and chromatographic separation using anionic resins added in bulk that exploit different Isoelectric points of each whey protein. Whey bioactives are a valuable source of functional proteins that can be exploited in novel formulations, to be assumed through food ingestion. This chapter discusses the beneficial effects and potential applications of different whey isolates originating from different mammal milks, and the approaches to exploitation of whey protein fractions of different whey types.