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There is something significant and interesting here to consider around the foods we eat. How does history/social norms dictate food choice? With milk specifica
by aerophilic 9y ago
There is something significant and interesting here to consider around the foods we eat. How does history/social norms dictate food choice?
With milk specifically therE was new research talking about how it is unusual that we can drink milk at all [0]. Most of the world has trouble with Milk, but interestingly Europeans had developed the ability to digest milk.
Fast forward to today, milk primarily comes from “European” cows. However this “new” A2 milk comes from a different kind of cow and at least in theory doesn’t have the issues that typical (European) cows have.
When my first son was born, and now with our second, they both had issues when my wife would eat dairy. At the time I researched this extensively, and went as far as tried to acquire this “Jersey Cow milk”. Unfortunately, at the time I just couldn’t get it where I live. If this is now a true “thing” I would be really excited to see if it would allow my wife to drink milk while producing milk herself.
[0] http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WellnessNews/story?id=8450036 http://abcnews.go.com/Health/WellnessNews/story?id=8450036
- yorwba 9y agoI'm not sure whether you're trying to make a link between Europeans being able to digest milk and milk from Jersey cows somehow being more healthy than that of "European" cows, but I think that'd be nonsense. The channel islands are essentially part of Europe, and I doubt that inhabitants of Jersey somehow have a different level of milk tolerance that'd cause them to selectively breed cattle with the A2 variant of the protein. It's more likely that the variation is due to random chance amplified by breeding many cows starting with only a few ancestors.
- aerophilic 9y agoI am making no judgment on what is more "healthy". I am simply observing the fact that history/culture as a way of dictating what we eat, and making societal "norms". In this case, there are tons of milks that are "more digestible" by larger percentages of the population, but for whatever reason we continue to see "milk" as to mean this specific type of cow.
- philwelch 9y agoWe should probably clarify that it's cow milk that Europeans seem unusually well-equipped to digest. Mongols have drank horse milk for a very long time, ever since they were horse nomads.
- anitil 9y agoWow I did not know that, thanks!
- bonesss 9y agoI notice a large amount of cultural bias in my own opinions around milk... Objectively, drinking cow excretions is kinda odd. And milk from a horse is highly comparable. And, yet, my first reaction to this interesting historical info is "ewwwww, horse milk, gross".
- pugio 9y agoHave you tried goats milk? It's naturally A2, and can be easier for some stomachs. I actually make a goat's milk yogurt that, when left to ferment long enough (to consume all the lactose), has been perfectly fine on many friends' stomaches who usually claim some form of dairy intolerance.