Scribbles on Milk

Scribbles on Milk

Milk has always been around as a nourishing skin secretion which separates mammals from reptiles. For newborns to continues their physical development outside the womb, milk is the ideal formulated food from mother to child.

We humans are completely helpless for months after birth while our brains completes its development, milk help make possible the evolution outside the womb to the spectacular and unusual animals we are.

"...I came to deliver my people out of the hands of the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land and a large unto a land flowing with milk and honey.." - God to Moses on Mount Horeb (Exodus 3:8)

Rise of the Ruminants

All mammals produce milk for their young, but only a closely related handful have been exploited by humans. Around 30 million years ago, the earth's warm, moist climate became seasonally arid. This causes the expansion of the grasslands and so began the evolution of ruminant's ability to survive on dry grass.

Ruminants have highly specialized, multi-chamber stomach which accounts for a fifth of their body weight and houses trillions of fiber digesting microbes, most of which are located in the first chamber, the RUMEN.

Cattle, water buffalo, sheep, goats, camels, yaks are examples of ruminants and they produce milk copiously on feed that is otherwise useless to humans. Without them, there will be no DAIRYING.

Only a handful of species contribute significantly to the world's milk supply.

Origins of Dairying

Archaeological evidence suggests that sheep and goats were domesticated in the grasslands of present day Iran and Iraq between 8000 and 9000 BC, a thousand years before the larger and fiercer cattle. Small ruminants and then cattle were almost surely first milked into containers fashioned from skins or animal stomachs. 

The earliest hard evidence of dairying consists of clay sieves, which has been found in the settlements of early northern European farmers from around 5000 BC and rock drawings of milking scenes were made a thousand years later in the Sahara.

Early shepherds discovered that when milk is left to stand, fat-enriched cream forms at the top and if agitated the cream turns to butter. The remaining milk naturally turns acid and curdles into thick yogurt/ Salting the fresh curd produces a simple and long keeping cheese.

"...hast thou not poured me out as milk and curdled me like cheese?..." Job to God (Job 10:10)

Milk Nutrients

Nearly all milk contain the same nutrients but the relative proportions vary greatly from species to species. 

The Table below shows the nutrient contents of both familiar and unfamiliar milks.

Milk has long been synonymous with wholesome, fundamental nutrition, and for good reasons: unlike most of our foods, it is actually designed to be a food. As the sole sustaining food of the calf at the beginning of its life, it is a rich source of many essential body building nutrients, particularly: Protein, Sugar, Fat, Vitamin A, Vitamin B(s) and Calcium.

Over the pass few decades, however, the idealized portrait of milk has become more shaded as we learn that the balance of nutrients in cow's milk doesn't meet the need of human infants, and needless to say most adults can't digest the milk sugar known as Lactose. 

Nutrition and Allergies

In the middle of the 20th century, when nutrition was though to be simple matter of protein, calories, vitamins and minerals, cow's milk was deemed a good substitute for mother's milk. Physicians now recommend that plain cow's milk should not be fed to children younger than a year.

One reason is that it provides too much protein and not enough iron and highly unsaturated fats for the human infant. Another disadvantage is that it can trigger allergies as an infants digestive system is not fully formed which would result in some food protein and protein fragments to pass directly into the blood.

Most children eventually grow out of milk allergy, however, the obstacle for adults is the milk sugar Lactose, which can't be absorbed and used by the human body.

Lactose must first be broken down into its component sugars by digestive enzymes in the small intestines by the enzyme Lactase which reaches its maximum levels shortly after birth and then slowly declines to a steady minimum through adulthood.

It is obvious that it would be a waste of resources for the body to produce the enzyme when it is no longer needed as when mammals are weened, they would never encounter lactose again, Humans are the exception. If an adult without much lactase activity ingest a substantial amount of milk, the lactose passes through the small intestines and reaches the large intestines where bacteria metabolize it and in the process creates carbon dioxide, hydrogen and methane which are discomforting gasses. Sugar also draws water from the intestinal walls and this causes a bloated feeling which leads to diarrhea.

Fortunately Lactose Intolerance is not the same as Milk Intolerance. Lactase-less adults can consume up to 250 ml of milk per day without severe symptoms and even more of other dairy products. Lactose intolerant milk fans can now purchase the lactose digesting enzymes itself in liquid form and add it to any dairy products just before they consume it.