The www.tagatose.com site is not the friendliest one in the world, is it? The
closest I got to an explanation of what tagatose consists of is buried deep
inside a medical paper.

On page 9 of the Tagatose paper from the Journal of Medicinal Food by Gerard
Levin on the web page http://www.tagatose.com/pdf/naturlose-paper-gras.pdf is
this paragraph.

"The patented process for the manufacture of tagatose by Spherix starts with
lactose derived from whey or deproteinized whey. Should economics dictate,
food-grade lactose may be purchased for the starting point. The lactose is
solubilized and subject to enzyme-catalyzed hydrolysis, yielding a mixture of
D-galactose and D-glucose. The products are separated chromatographically, and the
galactose is isomerized with lime in the presence of a catalyst to form a
patented intermediate, calcium tagatate. Removed from the reaction mixture, the
calcium tagatate is then treated to yield tagatose that is purified by
chromatography. The tagatose is concentrated and dried into crystalline form. No organic
solvent is used in the process, which makes it fairly easy to clean up the
product."

As I read this, whey proteins are removed at the beginning of the process,
should any be there. While the process starts with extremely pure lactose, it is
immediately split into glucose and galactose, which is what happens in
standard digestion. Neither glucose nor galactose has any effect on those with LI or
milk protein allergy (although people with some rare diseases may find them
difficult to deal with).

Even then, the galactose is separated out using chromatography, which should
produce an extremely pure end product of galactose. This is then mixed with
lime to form a "salt" called calcium tagatate.

Calcium lactate is formed in a similar way and is not a concern for anyone
with LI. Calcium tagatate is much further away from lactose. Note that FAAN (The
Food Allergy & Anaphylaxis Network) says of calcium and sodium lactate: "They
do not contain milk protein and need not be restricted by someone avoiding
milk."

But even that's not the end. Another chromatographic separation is needed to
produce the final purified tagatose.

It appears to me that a product purified in this way is extremely unlikely to
contain either intact milk proteins or milk sugars.

But I am not a biochemist and I know that it takes only a few protein
molecules to create a problem.

Still, I have to say that this looks very favorable as a product that could
be used by anyone who needs to avoid milk, although probably not by vegans.

Steve Carper
Steve Carper's Lactose Intolerance Clearinghouse
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/stevecarper
see my page: Dairy or Non-Dairy? The Experts Speak at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/stevecarper/experts.htm