I've recently made some pretty big changes in my life.. i was working as an IT manager, but was miserable as hell - and I've decided to switch gears for awhile. Want to get involved with something that's going to help me sleep at night, and feel good at the same time.

So I gave notice - with minimal savings unfortunately - and am going to rough it for awhile. I'm moving out to the country for a bit to vlear my head, gonna join the local gym, and work my ass off - get back to the simple things.

Unfortunately, as I'm sure you'll all know, it's not just gym costs that bite.. Quite the opposite, it's all the supplements and whatnot. Hell I was putting away over $200 a month of Whey Protien Isolate alone, not counting everything else. So I got to talking with a mate the other day who just so happens to be a biochemist for a large dairy company in our state. He knew straight away how whey flour was processed, whick gave me hope, and with a little research he knew how they removed the lactose to get WPI (which they then sell onto redistributors to mark up ridiculously).

I have a few leads to follow up, but he seems fairly confident I will be able to sidestep the BIG brands, and buy pure, unflavoured (of course) WPI direct from local food ingredient comanies, for a fraction of the cost I've been buying my powders for in the past.

Anyone have any experience with this end of the market? obviously, those big brands have to get their product from somewhere.. They add some flavours, some additives, maybe some glutamine or creatine or something, and mark it up by 100%.. I'm sure that if I could buy from the distributor, it would have to be in significant quantities, and it might have a terrible shelf life (maybe requiring the purchase of a vacuum sealer or something)

But this stuff is just too expensive for me atm, and I LOATH tuna if I can get an inside line, well my biochem mate has already suggested we go into business marketing a sports drink, but frankly I'm just doing this to give myself as much of a head start as possible, if I have to mix in a little cocoa myself to improve the taste, I can live with that.. And if I can help out some bro's along the way with some uber-cheap whey, well, the more the merrier.

Down in Oz, we either get stupidly overpriced imported US or Canadian products, or our two/three local brands that feel that undercutting the overpriced imports by $10 a tub is being generous. We aren't talking seriously extreme chemcal processes here, and the stuff is just purified pig feed essentially.. He also hit on the idea of buying aminos direct, thinking this would be cheaper again, but I was tired and most of this went straight over my head lol