Contents


Preface

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has estimated that by 2050, food production should increase by 70% to feed the growing population. If we continue to produce the way we do, environmental pollution will undoubtedly be greater. It seems a perverse contradiction that while today there are more than 800 million undernourished or malnourished people in the world, a third of all the food produced is lost or wasted during the production process. This is by no means the cause of food injustice, but is certainly part of the problem. It is urgent that we rethink the way we are producing food, and especially our use of agro-industrial by-products. Whey - a cheese by-product - contains 50% nutrients and 90% water of original milk. However, whey is discarded as waste in most small and medium cheese industries throughout the world. The available technologies to process dairy industry by-products are expensive in terms of equipment acquisition and energy cost. This results in a dilemma: is it more profitable to discard whey as an effluent instead of elaborating it with added value. *Whey - Biological Properties and Alternative Uses* proposes to break this paradigm and has invited researches committed to this problem to present their proposals and results for the use of dairy byproducts beyond the traditional ones, such as direct use for animals, dehydration, or protein concentrate. This book is an excellent opportunity for graduate students and researchers to become aware of the problem of the misuse of agro-industrial by-products. Reducing food waste is everyone's responsibility. We must stop thinking about agro-industrial products as waste and find production alternatives.

**Dr. Isabel Gigli** Agriculture College,

La Pampa, Argentina

National University of La Pampa,
