Why don't they use Milk?

[Cocobeau]

I'm always curious when I visit other countries why they don't seem to have the obsession with milk that we have in the UK? In some countries I've visited it's been nearly impossible to find any fresh milk even in large supermarkets, just UHT. Other places you can find fresh milk, but very limited in small sections. I've certainly never seen anything like the entire fridges dedicated to the various milk types we have in the UK (maybe except for NZ). So why do we feel such a strong need for fresh milk and not the rest of the world? What do they use instead? Do they just give their kids water once they've come off breast/infant milk?

We holiday regularly in the Philippines and Indonesia, in fairly remote areas. Cereal is usually a breakfast option but always with UHT milk. If we ask for a tea or coffee it never comes with milk, nor are we asked if we'd like it so it's probably not a thing there.

I was going to say this. I have heard their increased height is due to the dairy rich diet. Enzymes 'in it ?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34380895.amp

I find it a bit childish when people start making comments about how weird and gross and unnatural it is to drink milk, going on about nipples and pus and baby cows and suchlike.

Fine to comment on the ethical implications of dairy farming, any potential health implications, don't have a problem with that.

But the sneery disgusted comments based on perceived weirdness or perversion or grossness wouldn't usually be considered acceptable about most longstanding cultural food practices — and drinking milk is such a longstanding cultural food practice that people descended from populations with that practice have physically evolved to be able to do it more easily. (I don't mean light-hearted musings like "I suppose it is a bit odd when you think about it", more the comments describing milk consumption as though it's some kind of deviant sexual practice, with distancing terminology or unappetising descriptions.)

Like if someone came from a culture with a longstanding cultural practice of letting blood from living cattle and consuming it. Talking about the ethical implications or health implications is one thing, but going "urgh it's weird and gross, sucking bovine bodily fluids out of an animal, it wasn't meant for you, it was meant for the animal etc. etc." would be really rude. There would probably be other aspects layered with it in that situation, like racism, or genuine unfamiliarity with the practice, but the rudeness and childishness is the same.

but to a normal human adult, milk drinking is impossible. Lactase, which is the enzyme needed to digest milk is present in children only, so to most of the world's adult population, milk will make them feel sick.

It is only in a few populations that a mutation has occurred meaning adults can still digest milk

The Masai in Kenya and the Northern European whites

Exactly. Milk-drinking is a longstanding cultural practice in those populations, which meant they evolved potentially lifelong lactase persistence.

(And the other way round as well, obviously — it became a longstanding cultural practice in part because the population's lactase persistence genes allowed it to.)

but if you are lactose intolerant, as most adult humans are, then milk is not just something you dislike, it is something that makes you actively sick - that is why people are so disgusted by it

There are lots of foods that, while they don't physiologically make me ill like lactose intolerance, would make me feel sick because I'm culturally unfamiliar with them and my senses or sensibilities would perceive them as decaying or dangerous. Natto, or balut, or drinks fermented from plant matter chewed by other people, maybe. It would still be incredibly rude of me to tell people from cultures that enjoy those foods how conceptually and viscerally revolting I might think they are.

We can flip this around and ask why we are so obsessed with kids needing milk and yogurt. Lots of parents seem to think they have to get it into their kids and see yogurts as a health food where as most flavoured yogurts are packed with huge amounts of sugar along with their calcium. Some people believe that dairy actually leaches the calcium from your bones but I’ve never researched that to see if it’s true and it’s not in any info to avoid for people with osteoporosis. There’s lots of other ways to get calcium though but as a nation we’re obsessed! I do use milk myself and like yogurt as well as loving cheese.

In a lot of cultures milk is made into cheese or yoghurt, sheep and goats milk too as those animals are easier to keep…Middle East say.

as others have said, a lot of people in Asia are lactose intolerant. I lived in Japan for a while and while you could get dairy products it wasn’t common for people to eat them.

China it varies, northern Chinese/Mongolia it’s more common to find dairy.

I tend to stick to black tea when travelling…..

I agree with you, and it's very plain that the posters who say these things are pushing an agenda, either vegan or anti formula milk, or probably both.

Interesting, I personally know one person who is lactose intolerant. She can eat cheese though.

I know children in DD's school who have the milk protein allergy which is different obviously.

I work for 20 years in the same company and organised food for events for several years, not once did we have to ask for a dairy free meal.

I like the taste of dairy but I also won't tell people that they are stupid for switching to almond/oats/coconut or whatever they like to drink.

Spot the vegan

I’m interested in why a foodie culture like France relies so heavily on UHT — the French dairy industry is the second-biggest in Europe, but something like 97% of milk retail is UHT, and the taste is far inferior when it’s used for cooking. French friends suggest either distribution issues before domestic fridges were widespread, a patriotic embrace of pasteurisation after Pasteur, or national hypochondria/ a preference for avoiding ‘germs’ in less thoroughly-pasteurised milk, or a combination.

Every day's a school day!

It's normal for human bodies to switch off the ability to digest milk once they are weaned. If most adults drink milk, it is highly irritant to their digestive systems, causing pain and diarrhea.
In some populations there is a genetic change that means adults continue to make the infant enzymes to digest milk. In Europe and parts of western Asia the majority can do this and have developed dairy industries to cater for it.

Well in Mongolia I had yaks milk, in Jordan I had camels milk, in rural Greece it was goats milk, so I guess it depends where you are as to what is readily available. I've also had ewes milk. Yaks milk is very creamy, camels milk was a similar taste to goats milk and an er acquired taste! Ewes milk was slightly sweeter, heavier than goats milk, but not as creamy as full fat cows milk (I'd also guess that the milk of each beast varies according to their own diet).
I don't think it's true to say it just Northern Europeans and the Masai who can drink milk. Although some cultures may not drink it 'raw' they certainly use it for cooking.

I react to gluten free oats too because I'm just super special

India has a big dairy industry, from the main brand Amul, which does cheese and other products as well, to many smaller set ups around towns. Milk is delivered every morning direct to houses in big churns on the side of a motorbike. Or you can walk to a milk shop, very common, and buy what you need for that day.

Supermarkets do stock milk but its more common to shop from markets and smaller shops.

well, you probably mostly know northern white europeans then, that is the only population where the mutation that makes you keep producing lactase enzymes is common

but most people who dont have that enzyme as adulthood will have it in childhood, milk is a children's food, and latose intolerance is normally developed later on in life-

it is a common reason for teens to suddenly have an attendance drop off in school, for repeated upset stomachs, which take a while to be diagnosed as lactose intolerance

so the number of white people and children you know who can drink milk is not a measure of how common lactose intolerance is

Very true overall. But lots of people have now switched to Amul milk and other such local dairy co-ops too.

^ Oops, I was trying to quote and respond to the poster who mentioned water buffalo milk in India.

France here. Lots of milk-based products (yoghurt, crème, cheese of course!) but milk is not consumed as a drink on its own, most tea is herbal or taken black, and most coffee is taken black.

lait de croissance is popular for older babies, but its basically a sugary version of uht milk.

i breastfed mine until they were 3 yrs old, so never gave them cows milk as a drink . Breastfeeding for so long and reading up on the biology of milk production in mammals did make me question why we think it’s any kind of a substitute for human milk, produced by a nursing mother.