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Why Only Cow Milk?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milk

there is a list of other animals there, including Zebras, Buffalo, Yaks, Camels, and even Reindeer... no wonder Santa has those Reindeer, so he has the energy to keep going all night, and doesn't get thirsty!
 
Article relevant to topic:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/10/science/10cnd-evolve.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

...Throughout most of human history, the ability to digest lactose, the principal sugar of milk, has been switched off after weaning because there is no further need for the lactase enzyme that breaks the sugar apart. But when cattle were first domesticated 9,000 years ago and people later started to consume their milk as well as their meat, natural selection would have favored anyone with a mutation that kept the lactase gene switched on...
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xodonniedarko said:
I had a cow for 6 years that my mom milked every single day. She'd milk it, skim the cream and dust off the top, and put it in the frige. We probably went through a gallon a day and there are only 5 people in my family. None of us have ever broken a bone and we've always been hormonally balanced, because we also had our own chicken and eggs.
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While I agree there are too many hormones, etc. in today's food, I'd like to add that I've been lactose intolerant since 1 year of age and I haven't broken a single bone either. I've also never taken a calcium supplement.
 
Milk gives me a tummy ache. I usually only drink it with doughnuts or peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I also put it on cereal and cook with it. Cheese is awesome, I have yet to meet a cheese I didn't like, but it also makes me feel like I've swallowed a fistful of rocks.
 
what about soy milk hmmm yummy, lol, yeah but i really love milk, which reminds me, my friend came up to Toronto from California and was amazed at teh fact that milk is sold packed in plastic bags up here not in plastic gallon containers ahhaha i know out of topic but hey at least it's still about milk..
 
xodonniedarko said:
/snip/ Anyways. Cows are also a lot easier to cope with. Escape goats was a term for a reason - I have two goats (and no other animals) and they won't stop breaking out of their fence. Cows, on the other hand, just don't make an effort to escape.

They're easy to handle, easy to feed, and easy to eat.
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I dunno if they are always easier to milk, though. Some of those little Brown Swiss, you bend in to clean their udder or hook them up to the line and they like to kick your head in as soon as not. And here, there's one batch of young Black Angus cattle who do like to escape. When the clerk at the general store hears from some tourist that there's "black cows" out in the road (yet again), she calls up to that farm and asks "Got burgers?"
 
R.Youden said:
This thread reminds me of the classic Red Dwarf sketch:

Linky

You just HAVE to watch this!
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:D :D :D Priceless, really!

Man this thread could short-circuit your brain if you just dropped in on it later sometime, instead of being along for this ride.

And for us who ARE along for the ride, maybe we're actually in one of those slow-cooker frog-boiling experiments. :confused: :eek:
 
You shouldn't have linked me to Red Dwarf... I might have to put all the DVDs on again :(
 
Goats milk and goats cheese is my favourite, but I don't have it all that often as it's quite expensive. Pungent as hell too :)

All the shops around here sell it.

Tried breast milk a couple of times. Tastes thinner and sweeter than cows milk.

Also available widely here - cheeses made from sheeps milk (feta and halloumi) and sometimes buffalo mozzarella if they're posh.
 
theman said:
i watched this documentary about mongolian nomads and they milked their horses and donkeys.
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Are you sure that they got milk out of those animals?



Um......the only thing easier than milking a docile cow is a docile soybean.
I loves me some soy milk in my cereal. :) However, in my coffee, I need real milk. It really depends on what brand of soy milk you use, though. I drink Vitasoy, and you can barely tell it's not cow's milk.
 
I think it has to do with morals. I mean, what would you thing if you were walking through the grocery store one day and saw a whole shelf full of "Fresh Dog Milk?" How many people do you think would actually buy it?
 
Keeping women lactating is inconvenient, also human milk doesn't work so well with tea, it's a bit too sweet.
 
I usually wonder who the first dude was that was looking at a cow or any other animal and seeing the young feed off of it and decided to go give it a try. (Imagine someone running over pushing a calf out of the way and getting on the udder).
Logic would seem to dictate that one would feed within one's own species - so in that case we would be milking women and selling that :p. Disgusting as it may sound it would be more logical - though I try not to drink any kind of milk.
 
Obviously goats and sheep produce significantly less milk per animal than cows, which is the main reason goat and sheep's milk is much more expensive than cow's milk.

Horse's milk is used for therapeutic/medicinal purposes in some European countries, but mares produce tiny amounts of milk (no udders, duh), and so the milk is incredibly expensive. Same goes for donkey milk -- they produce minuscule amounts. Cleopatra was said to have bathed in donkey's milk which was thought to be good for the skin. Yak milk and butter are fairly popular in Tibet and Mongolia though I don't think people there consume much milk per capita.
 
GSMiller said:
I think it has to do with morals. I mean, what would you thing if you were walking through the grocery store one day and saw a whole shelf full of "Fresh Dog Milk?" How many people do you think would actually buy it?
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Enough to allow sale in ASDA. Albeit not for humans.

dogmilkba724.jpg
 
Doctor Q said:
The fact that some of us drink milk past infancy is itself interesting. I think it was the advent of farming in Europe that made animal milk plentiful, and led to an adaptation in physiology so adults could drink milk. Those descendant from Europeans are more likely to have both the habit and tolerance for drinking cow's milk.
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You're off by a few thousand years on the history of milk consumption, although the cow is a more recent source. References to milk production and consumption go back as far as recorded history. Lactose intolerance does vary by ethnic origin.
 
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