Transforming Pig’s Wash into Health Food: The Construction of Skimmed Milk Protein Powders

ABSTRACT In the late 1890s, chemists devised industrial processes to manufacture milk protein powders, now a major fitness food category. These peculiar and flavorless inventions were made from skimmed milk waste from modernised dairies. This paper explores why manufacturers made them and why the British ate them, by examining what commentators and eaters wrote and read about them. The two leading brands were near-identical materially, but became understood differently. Purportedly, Plasmon was a scientifically-advanced proteinaceous muscularizing product while Sanatogen was a phosphorated nerve supplement which imbued intellect and willpower. Their positionings were shaped by the myth-making power of advertising, amplified by the power of celebrity testimonies and the authority of scientific experts, and tempered by press and consumer’ reactions. Scientific knowledge was used reductively, and was shaped by cultural values. Consumers were complicit in this framing: the technification of these white powders provided mechanisms for self-improvement. Consumers simply needed to swallow.