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Humans were drinking milk before they could digest it
- hprotagonist 6y agoif you have domesticated herds and you live in an arid climate, you can regard your milk animals as portable water fountains that eat vegetable matter which you cannot, and produce protein and hydration more or less on demand, for free. Hell of a lot easier than oasis hunting.
- thaumasiotes 6y ago> for free Sort of. You have to feed them, often by moving from site to site throughout the year as pastures become overgrazed. Even more importantly, you have to guard them against rustlers. The incentive for someone else to steal your animals is so high that preventing raids ends up dominating your life.
- chrisco255 6y agoAnd thus, the concept of war was born.
- meepmorp 6y agoI'd bet humans invented warfare way before animal husbandry.
- chrisco255 6y agoHey! Those are OUR mastadons!
- Fricken 6y agoHuman's didn't invent war. Insects go to war.
- meepmorp 6y agoInsects also practice animal husbandry.
- thaumasiotes 6y agoThat's true, but we can still say humans invented animal husbandry; humans descend from species that didn't practice it. In contrast, humans have a continuous tradition of war that goes back long before the differentiation of the species.
- thaumasiotes 6y agoFrom a theoretical perspective, this cannot be a surprise. There is no evolutionary advantage to producing lactase if you don't drink milk. There is a cost, which is why most populations stop producing lactase after weaning. It isn't possible for lactase persistence to spread in an environment that doesn't already feature adult consumption of milk; this finding was guaranteed before a study began.
- warent 6y agoI have little knowledge of evolution theory, can you please help me understand this? How can one force evolution by invoking a fitness cost? Wouldn't that actually just drive extinction? I would have thought that if producing lactase when consuming milk has a cost, then over time, milk-consuming populations would suffer and disappear from lower fitness, and the ones who aren't drinking milk would survive and win the genetic race.
- TinkersW 6y agoYou are forgetting that drinking milk was beneficial(lots of extra calories for example), this obviously outweighed the downside of lactose intolerance.
- asymptosis 6y agoYes. And it didn't have to be an all-or-nothing thing. It's also plausible that cow milk was used for babies who lost their mother. So to create an evolutionarily significant effect, it was sufficient to simply select for babies who could keep drinking cow's milk for longer and longer, on average.
- thaumasiotes 6y agoYou might be interested to know that there are -- broadly -- three lactase production strategies that humans exhibit. Everyone produces lactase as an infant, for obvious reasons. Some people cease producing lactase at some point in childhood, so that they are unable to digest lactose as adults. Some people continue producing lactase throughout their lives, so that they are always able to digest lactose. But some people continue producing lactase as long as they maintain regular dietary lactose intake, even if that circumstance lasts well into adulthood. However, if they ever go for an extended period without consuming lactose, they permanently cease lactase production.
- trynumber9 6y ago>That undercuts a myth, propagated by white supremacists, that lactase persistence and milk drinking are somehow associated with white Europeans. Isn't it most associated with that ethnic group? https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lactase_persistence_in_the_Old_World.svg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lactase_persistence_... Even a broken clock can be right...
- Retric 6y agoNot really, it’s more common in parts of Saudi Arabia and Africa than Germany or Russia. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Lactose_tolerance_in_the_Old_World.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Lactose_... It’s one of those things somewhat associated with what is considered race, but not all that closely. Further, the underlying data is very messy.
- will4274 6y agoWhere is it most common?
- Retric 6y agoDepends on how your counting. If you mean right now and in terms of total number of people probably India. If you’re talking historic rates it varies depending on time period and how local your talking about. With villages in Asia, Europe, and Africa hitting ~100% at various points. If you want a national average today then the UK.
- baccheion 6y agoYes. In areas of Africa with higher milk drinking, more have the gene mutations leading to lactase persistence.
- chrisco255 6y agoReally? Did this article really have to go there and bring that up? Does it do anything to enhance the story at all or is it just dredging up mud for no productive reason, whatsoever?
- forgotmypw17 6y agoI read an interview once with a guy who, due to various intolerances and circumstances, ended with a raw meat diet. He has some source of getting good meat, like a farm which also lets him take the animal straight to the butcher, stores it frozen, and eats it just like that, IIRC. He said that in the beginning, he had trouble digesting it, until he let some meat get to borderline rotting and then ate that. Somehow that colonized his gut with a biome which could digest it, and he was golden after that. Something to think about in this context... Personally, I find most milk to be difficult to digest, but cheese and yogurt and such goes over quite well. Edit: https://archive.is/cX98n https://archive.is/cX98n https://www.vice.com/en/article/nnqw3q/this-guy-has-eaten-nothing-but-raw-meat-for-five-years https://www.vice.com/en/article/nnqw3q/this-guy-has-eaten-no...
- nanagojo 6y agoI think humans in general can eat raw meat. It just doesn't give as much calories compared to cooked meat, plus more chance of diseases which would've been sorted out by the heat if it was cooked.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- duxup 6y agoIt also takes more work to digest.
- viklove 6y agoThat's why it "doesn't give as much calories." It actually gives the same amount of calories, we just expend more calories digesting raw meat. Cooking the meat is also referred to as "freeing up" calories.
- scottisbrave84 6y agoUm. E=mc^2 and reducing a piece of meat with heat does not increase calories.
- nineplay 6y agoI'll save anyone a click who was as puzzled as I was. > All humans can digest milk in infancy. But the ability to do so as an adult developed fairly recently Is it just me or would "Adult humans were drinking milk..." been a far more clarifying title. I clicked on the link just to make sure I hadn't lost my mind. Humans have been drinking milk since whatever first glimmering of 'human' existed.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- gopty 6y agoMaybe they were drinking fermented milk like yoghurt or kefir. No lactate sugars...
- niftich 6y agoThe study cannot (and does not attempt to) distinguish whether the milk proteins found within the dental calculus of these thousands-of-years-old remains were as a result of drinking raw milk or consuming fermented milk products. Even the article admits this, but the headline's use of the word 'drink' is misleading and unfortunate. Fermented milk products are often consumed among populations that cannot digest lactose, because they contain less lactose per weight, or occasionally contain lactase enzyme themselves. They're a conduit to consuming the calories from milk products without the discomfort and the rapid unhygienic fluid loss that can result from the inability to digest lactose.
- ars 6y agoI agree, the article is not supported by the evidence. They have evidence of dairy consumption, but no evidence of liquid milk consumption. Is the actual study better? Because if not, then how did this pass peer review?
- godmode2019 6y agohttps://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/how-can-you-eat-dairy-if-you-lack-gene-digesting-it-fermented-milk-may-be-key-ancient https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/how-can-you-eat-dair...
- waheoo 6y agoWhy is literally everything being spun to cover some racial tension. You've disproved a myth held by 0.00001 percent of the population. Cool. You gonna disprove flat earthers in your next article about cow flatulence? Just so damn tired of hearing about racism. We get it, you've got problems.
- amriksohata 6y agoOnly 6000 years ago? All the Indians with scriptures linked to cows and milk consumption for millenia before chuckling at this....
- lurquer 6y agoHad evolution been behind all this, it would have been far more likely for the cattle to have evolved to produce milk digestible to humans. The cattle whose milk was easily digestible would have been selectively bred by the humans. This artificial selection would have been many orders of magnitude more influential than the random, accidental forces alluded to in the article. Yet, that didn’t happen. So, I’m skeptical about an evolutionary explanation. Further, the underlying premise of the study is that humans, circa 6000 years ago, were lactose intolerant. Says who? A critical reader would stop there and demand some answers as to why they are making this assumption. (Indeed, even in this thread, you see confusion and disagreements as to which group of living humans are or are not intolerant... yet, I’m supposed to assume that we know with certainty the prevalence of lactose intolerance amongst a population 6000 years ago?!)
- sunstone 6y agoA safer form of water even if you can't make use of the nutrition?