A white container and a small pile of protein powder

Is protein powder just chemicals? How it's made and what's inside

Updated on 24.10.2026 16 min read22 sources

The short answer: protein powder made from eggs and milk is food, real egg white and milk, separated and dried the same way milk powder is made. If a product has additives, they're listed in the ingredients. Your grandma, though, opens the cupboard, spots the bag, raises an eyebrow and says: “That's just chemicals.” Fair enough. A white powder, a long label, words like “concentrate” and “isolate”. Here we'll go step by step through how egg white and milk protein become powder, what E numbers actually mean and what the research says about kidneys, hormones and heavy metals. After that, you'll know what to tell her.

In short

Egg white powder is made from real egg whites: the eggs are cracked, and the whites are separated, filtered, pasteurized and dried. One kilogram of powder takes the whites of about 230 eggs.
Milk protein concentrate is made from skim milk: a fine membrane holds back the protein, while water, milk sugar and minerals pass through it.
Powder is food with the water taken out. Milk powder, instant coffee and paprika go through a similar process.
An E number means the substance has been assessed and authorized in the EU. What's in a product is written in its ingredients list.
In healthy people, a higher protein intake didn't worsen kidney function (a summary of 28 studies with 1 358 people).

First: what we mean by “chemicals”

Strictly speaking, everything is chemistry. Tomatoes, bread and tap water are all made of chemical substances. When someone calls a food “chemicals”, they're usually asking something else: was this put together in a lab out of nothing, or does it come from something you know?

The protein powder we're talking about here comes from two foods you have in your fridge: eggs and milk. The road to powder is separating and drying. The white is separated from the yolk, the protein in milk is separated from the water and milk sugar, and then everything is dried.

The logic is the same as with strained yogurt. You take out some of the water, and what's left is thicker, with more protein per spoonful. With powder, almost all the water comes out.

How egg white powder is made

Raw egg white is mostly water. According to USDA data, 100 g contains 87.6 g of water and 10.9 g of protein. The goal of production is to remove the water without damaging the protein and without leaving bacteria behind. Here's what the process looks like, according to the 2026 scientific review by Mannott, Bosse and Gibis and other sources:

Sorting. At grading centers, eggs are sorted by size. Sizes M and L mostly go to the shops, and the rest most often become egg products.
Cracking and separating. Machines crack the eggs and separate the whites from the yolks. Then the whites are filtered so no bits of shell are left.
Pasteurization. The liquid egg white is heated briefly, usually at 56-58 °C for 2-3 minutes. That kills bacteria like salmonella without cooking the white.
Removing the natural glucose. Raw egg white has about 0.7 g of sugars per 100 g. They're removed before drying, for example by fermentation. Otherwise the powder turns brown from the Maillard reaction, the same reaction that gives a baked crust its color.
Spray drying. The egg white is sprayed as tiny droplets into a tower of hot air and turns into powder in a fraction of a second. More on this below.
A second, dry pasteurization. The finished powder, already packed, rests in a warm room. The scientific literature describes 58 to 60 °C for 10 to 14 days, or about 65 °C for at least 10 days. It's extra protection against salmonella.

An interesting detail: in some countries, eggs are washed and disinfected before they're cracked. In many places in Europe, that isn't allowed.

Why it's the egg white that becomes powder

The reasons are practical. Raw egg white has its own protective proteins and doesn't breed bacteria the way yolk does, so it can travel to specialized drying plants. And without the water it weighs many times less, which makes transport cheaper. If you want to know more about egg white itself, see our article on egg protein.

Egg white powder has long been an ordinary ingredient in the food industry. According to Perez-Reyes and colleagues (2020), egg powders are used mostly in baked goods and baking mixes, mayonnaise, dressings, desserts, ice cream and pasta.

Hands cracking an egg over a glass bowl as the white runs off separately from the yolk — Separating the white from the yolk. In factories, machines do it, but the principle is the same as in your kitchen. Photo: Los Muertos Crew / Pexels

~230egg whites go into 1 kg of egg white powder (our math: 7.6 kg of liquid egg white at 33 g per egg)Based on USDA FoodData Central data

Drying: a cloud of droplets and 0.2 seconds

Egg white and milk protein are both most often dried the same way, with a method called spray drying. The liquid is sprayed into a tall tower with hot air blowing through it.

The secret is in the size of the droplets. According to Tetra Pak's dairy processing handbook, 1 liter of concentrate is sprayed into droplets about 50 microns across. Their total surface area is about 120 m², the size of a large apartment. The bigger the surface, the faster the water escapes.

0.2 sis all it takes for a 50-micron droplet to dry in the towerTetra Pak Dairy Processing Handbook

The air enters the tower at about 200 °C, but the droplet doesn't get that hot. While water is evaporating from it, it stays at about 50 °C. Evaporation cools it, the way sweat cools your skin on a hot day. By the time the air leaves the tower, it's down to 70 to 90 °C.

A spray drying tower in a food plant, photographed from below, with a steel frame and a cone-shaped bottom — A spray drying tower in a food plant, seen from below. Photo: Jü / Wikimedia Commons, CC0

In the end, milk powders keep only 2.5 to 5% moisture. With that little water, microbes can't grow, which is why dried foods keep for a long time. The Tetra Pak handbook sums it up: when drying is done right, the food, once its water is added back, has almost the same nutritional value, color, taste and texture as the fresh food.

How milk protein concentrate is made

Skim milk has 90.8 g of water and 3.4 g of protein per 100 g (USDA). Milk protein concentrate collects that protein and lets go of most of the water, milk sugar and minerals. Its short name is MPC. The number after the letters shows the percentage of protein, under the standard of the American Dairy Products Institute (ADPI).

Milk. It all starts with cow's milk.
Skimming. A centrifuge separates out the cream. This is usually done warm, at about 40 to 50 °C, on the same line as pasteurization.
Pasteurization. The milk is heated to kill harmful bacteria, just like the milk you buy at the shop.
Ultrafiltration. The skim milk flows past membranes with very fine pores. The protein is too large to get through, and over 99% of it stays behind. Water, lactose and minerals pass through the membrane.
Washing. For a higher percentage of protein, water is added to the concentrate and the filtering continues. That washes out more lactose. The method is called diafiltration.
Drying. The concentrate, now at 12 to 18% dry matter, is spray dried, just like egg white.

How fine is this filtering?

A coffee filter stops particles bigger than 10 microns. The membranes in dairy processing separate substances much smaller than that, down to the level of individual molecules. The membranes themselves are often rolled up, so a large area fits inside a small tube.

A spiral-wound membrane module, partly unrolled on a glass table — Spiral membrane modules, here for reverse osmosis. Dairy plants use similar rolled membranes. Photo: Peter in s / Wikimedia Commons, public domain

One important detail from the ADPI standard: milk protein concentrate can't be put together by mixing separately produced proteins. The filtering keeps almost all the proteins from the milk, so casein and the other milk proteins stay in the same ratio as in milk, usually 80 to 20. You'll find more about the two types of protein in milk in our article on milk protein.

What's in 100 g of high-protein MPC	Grams (typical composition)
Casein	65.3
Other milk proteins and nitrogen compounds	16.3
Lactose (milk sugar)	6.5
Minerals and other	6.3
Water	3.8
Fat	1.3

Source of the table: Tetra Pak Dairy Processing Handbook. The composition varies a little from one manufacturer to another.

~24 kgof skim milk go into about 1 kg of high-protein MPC (our rough math)Based on USDA and Tetra Pak data

Powder is food with the water taken out

Drying is one of the oldest ways to preserve food. According to Marco Polo's travel accounts, the Mongols dried milk in the sun and so made milk powder. Microbes need water to grow. Take it away and food keeps much longer and weighs much less.

Here's how much water some familiar foods have before and after drying, according to USDA data:

Food	Water per 100 g, fresh	Water per 100 g, dried
Skim milk / milk powder	90.8 g	3.2 g
Egg white / egg white powder	87.6 g	5.8 g
Red bell pepper / paprika, dried and ground	92.2 g	11.2 g
Brewed coffee / instant coffee	99.4 g	3.1 g

Egg white shows the difference most clearly. Raw egg white has 10.9 g of protein per 100 g, and egg white powder has 81.1 g. The protein is the same, the water is gone. Instant coffee goes through a similar process: water is removed from coffee extract by spray drying or by freeze-drying. Flour is ground grain, and grain is dry to begin with: white flour has about 12 g of water per 100 g.

Open tins of red, orange and yellow ground spices, shot from above — Paprika and other ground spices are dried and ground plants. Photo: Deepak Maurya / Pexels

Fact

Powdered infant formula is made with the same method, spray drying.

What else goes into protein products

Many protein products on the market also contain additives: for a sweet taste, for a thicker texture or so they mix without lumps. Here are the most common groups, with examples from the official list of authorized additives:

Group	What it's for	Examples
Sweeteners	Sweet taste	sucralose (E955), acesulfame K (E950), steviol glycosides (E960)
Thickeners	Thicker texture	xanthan gum (E415), guar gum (E412)
Emulsifiers	Help the powder mix with liquid	lecithins (E322)
Anti-caking agents	Keep the powder from clumping	silicon dioxide (E551)
Colors	Color	annatto (E160b)
Acidity regulators	Taste and stability	citric acid (E330)

All of them are authorized in the EU. Whether you want to eat them is a matter of taste and choice, and the answer is always in the ingredients list.

In MEALUP, the protein comes from two sources: egg white and milk protein concentrate. Together they provide all 9 essential amino acids (we explain what that means in our article on complete protein). It's savory and goes into food you're cooking anyway, so it has no added sugar and no sweeteners. One serving (30 g) has at least 20 g of protein. It's made in the EU and registered with the BFSA (Bulgarian Food Safety Agency). The full ingredients list is on the pack.

E numbers, minus the panic

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) defines food additives as substances added to food to preserve or improve its safety, freshness, taste, texture or appearance. In the EU, every additive has an E number, and its safety is assessed before it's authorized.

So the letter E is really a sign that something has been checked. Many additives even come from nature. Vitamin C is E300. Pectin from fruit, which thickens jam, is E440. Lycopene, the red pigment in tomatoes, is E160d.

Myth

“If it has an E, it's bad for you.” In fact, E300 is vitamin C. An E number shows that the substance has been assessed and authorized in the EU, with rules on which foods it can go into and in what amount.

Authorizations aren't forever. EFSA re-evaluates older additives against current scientific standards and has already gone through more than 70% of the 315 additives authorized in the EU before January 20, 2009.

70%+of the 315 additives authorized in the EU before 2009 have already been re-evaluated by EFSAEFSA

For many additives, EFSA also sets an acceptable daily intake (ADI). That's the amount you can take in every day over a lifetime without an appreciable risk to health. It's measured in milligrams per kilogram of body weight per day.

How do you spot additives on a label? Under EU law (Regulation 1169/2011), an additive is listed with its category and its name or E number, for example “antioxidant: ascorbic acid” or “antioxidant: E300”. Eggs and milk, for their part, are among the 14 allergens that must be highlighted in the ingredients, for example in bold. So with egg and milk protein, you'll see exactly those words highlighted.

Heavy metals and independent testing

In October 2025, the US organization Consumer Reports tested 23 protein powders and ready-to-drink protein drinks. In more than two thirds of them, a single serving contained more lead than the organization considers acceptable for a whole day. Its threshold is very strict: 0.5 micrograms a day. Products with plant protein had on average 9 times more lead than those with milk protein. The reason, according to the authors: plants take up whatever is in the soil, water and air around them.

That sounds alarming, so the context matters too. A 2020 risk assessment (Bandara and colleagues, Toxicology Reports) calculated the intake of arsenic, cadmium, mercury and lead at 1 and at 3 servings of protein powder a day. It concluded that these amounts don't carry an increased health risk. The estimated blood lead levels in adults stayed below the guidance of the US health authorities.

In the EU, the rules are the same for all foods. Food with an unacceptable amount of a contaminant can't be sold. Contaminant levels must be as low as can reasonably be achieved with good manufacturing practice. Regulation (EU) 2023/915 sets maximum levels for lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic in food.

There are also independent testing programs. Informed Sport, for example, tests every batch of sports supplements for banned substances before it reaches the market. Programs like this matter most for competitive athletes who face doping control.

Tip

When you choose a protein powder, look for a manufacturer with an address, a clear ingredients list, highlighted allergens and a nutrition table. You can also ask the manufacturer for lab test results.

Frequently asked questions

Is it artificial?

Protein powder made from eggs and milk comes from real eggs and real milk. Production separates and dries them: the white from the yolk, the protein from the water and milk sugar. Under the ADPI standard, milk protein concentrate is made from skim milk by filtering and can't be put together from separately produced proteins. There are also products on the market with lots of additives, so the surest answer for any specific product is its ingredients list.

Is it bad for your kidneys?

In healthy people, studies don't show that. A 2018 summary (Devries and colleagues, Journal of Nutrition) brought together 28 studies with 1 358 healthy adults. People on higher-protein diets (at least 1.5 g per kilogram a day, or at least 20% of calories, or at least 100 g a day) didn't have worse kidney function than the others. If you have kidney disease, ask your doctor how much protein is right for you.

Does it contain hormones?

In the EU, giving farm animals substances with a hormonal growth effect has been banned since 1981 (Directive 81/602/EEC, now Directive 96/22/EC). The ban also applies to imports from outside the EU. The same ban covers the cows and hens in the EU that give the milk and eggs.

Why is it a powder?

Without water, food keeps longer and weighs less. Egg white powder stored in a dry, cool, dark place keeps for a year or more. Compare: 1 kg of egg white powder replaces about 7.6 kg of liquid egg white. Powder also mixes into food that's already cooked without watering it down.

Does it contain preservatives?

Dried foods are protected mainly by the drying itself: milk powders keep 2.5 to 5% moisture, and with that little water microbes can't grow. If a product does contain a preservative, it must appear in the ingredients list with its category, for example “preservative: potassium sorbate” or “preservative: E202”.

Is it only for athletes?

Everyone needs protein. EFSA recommends 0.83 g of protein per kilogram of body weight a day for healthy adults, whether they work out or not. Protein contributes to the maintenance of muscle mass and to the maintenance of normal bones, and that counts when you're carrying shopping bags or climbing stairs too. Protein powder is protein from food in a more concentrated form. To see how much you need, read our article on how much protein you need a day.

Can I cook with it?

Yes. Cooking changes the shape of protein without destroying it. In a small 1998 study (Evenepoel and colleagues), people absorbed 90.9% of the protein from cooked egg and 51.3% of the protein from raw egg. The study used fresh eggs and says nothing about protein powder. MEALUP goes into savory dishes: you sprinkle 1 serving (30 g) over the finished dish, and when you stir it into a sauce or soup, you use 2 to 3 servings, because the flavor gets lost among the other ingredients. It's best added toward the end of cooking or straight onto your plate.

What if I have an allergy?

Eggs and milk are among the 14 allergens that must be labeled in the EU and highlighted in the ingredients. The main allergen in egg white is a protein called ovomucoid. If you're allergic to eggs or milk, protein made from them isn't for you. If you're unsure, pregnant or have a chronic condition, ask your doctor.

Are there heavy metals in protein powder?

Traces of metals are found in many foods, because they come from the soil, water and air. In the US tests, products with milk protein had less lead on average than plant-based ones. In the EU, foods must stay within maximum levels for lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic. The details are in the section on heavy metals above.

Next time someone says “chemicals”, you'll know what to answer: eggs, milk and a lot of water that went up the dryer's chimney. If you want to untangle the other myths about protein too, carry on with our article on protein myths.