Recovery of Three Water-Soluble Vitamins from Whey Protein Concentrate

The nutritional supplement industry is quickly growing due to the increased concern consumers have about their health and nutritional consumption. Combining nutritional intake with convenience has led to the popularity of ready-to-mix (RTM) drinks, which improve the immune system and muscle recovery of consumers. RTM drinks have added vitamins, which degrade throughout the product’s shelf life because of their sensitivity to heat, light, and moisture. Since the FDA mandates nutritional content stated on the product label must meet or exceed the listed value, additional vitamins known as overage are added to combat degradation. A kinetic degradation model has not been established to precisely determine the surplus of vitamins C, B5, and B9 in RTMs. The objective is to create such a model to accurately estimate the excess vitamins required to comply with FDA standards. The vitamins were extracted by dissolving the vitamins and whey protein concentrate (WPC) in 5 mm HCl in 20% methanol or warm water with salt, adjusting the pH, sonicating, and centrifuging the solution. As the study continues, the optimized extraction process will be used to investigate the shelf-life of vitamins C, B5, and B9.