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The Weird History of Milk [20:57]
YouTube ^ | March 3, 2025 | The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Posted on 03/24/2025 7:29:11 PM PDT by SunkenCiv

A cow with a name produces more milk than one without. And that might not be the strangest thing about moo juice, a decidedly odd part of human history. 
The Weird History of Milk | 20:57 
The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered | 1.52M subscribers | 121,022 views | March 3, 2025
The Weird History of Milk | 20:57 | The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered | 1.52M subscribers | 121,022 views | March 3, 2025

(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: agriculture; animalhusbandry; dietandcuisine; food; godsgravesglyphs; lancegeiger; livestock; milk; thehistoryguy; thg
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--> YouTube-Generated Transcript <--
0:00·in 2009 dos Katherine Douglas and Peter
0:03·rollison of Newcastle University
0:06·published a study with one of the more
0:07·surprising results you might have ever
0:09·heard that is a cow that is given a name
0:13·and is treated as an individual produces
0:15·more milk than one without a name and
0:18·that is not by any means the strangest
0:20·thing about moo juice a surprisingly
0:22·important and yet decidedly odd part of
0:25·human history
0:30·milk is part of the definition of a
0:32·mammal while biology might consider
0:33·things like hair and live birth the
0:35·fundamental definition of a mammal is
0:37·any animal in which the female feeds her
0:39·Young on milk from her own body this
0:42·can't be confusing non-mammals from
0:44·pigeons to TI flies also produce
0:46·milk-like substances to nourish their
0:47·young but before you try to milk a TIY
0:49·fly there is a fundamental difference
0:51·with Mamon milk which is the presence of
0:54·lactose lactose is a type of sugar a
0:57·disaccharide as a sugar it provides a
0:59·ready source of energy a primary source
1:01·of carbohydrates needed for growth and
1:04·development lactose is frankly weird Dr
1:07·Harold brassau a senior research
1:09·scientist at the Nestle Research Center
1:10·in Switzerland explains this sugar is so
1:12·familiar to Dairy microbiologists that
1:14·they forget that lactose is an exotic
1:16·compound in nature found outside of milk
1:18·only in for Cynthia flowers and some
1:20·tropical
1:21·shrubs this is particularly Odd as sugar
1:24·is actually pretty common in nature the
1:27·website of Green Valley lactose-free
1:28·milk explains there are many natural
1:30·sugars like glucose fructose and sucrose
1:33·and these sugars are found widely in
1:35·nature from fruits vegetables and Grains
1:37·to honey and maple sap Strangers still
1:40·our digestive system find natural sugars
1:42·like glucose fructose and sucrose easy
1:44·to absorb lactose on the other hand
1:47·poses what Dr Brussel calls a
1:49·biochemical challenge being a
1:51·disaccharide a special enzyme called
1:54·lactase is needed to absorb lactose and
1:57·brusso notes lactose synthesis is in
1:59·ically demanding that leads to the
2:02·fundamental question brael writes in
2:04·view of these difficulties one might ask
2:06·why nature experimented with lactose and
2:09·not glucose as energy carrier for
2:11·breastfeeding when biological systems
2:13·use energy costly devices one might
2:15·suspect regulatory needs behind it sound
2:18·notes early in human history the
2:20·population size was very small therefore
2:22·optimal birth spacing had to be achieved
2:24·not too narrow because it would
2:25·overstretch the feeding capacity or
2:27·bodily food reserves of the woman and
2:29·not too long because this strategy would
2:31·compromise the growth of the
2:32·tribe breastfeeding regulates child
2:35·birth by suppressing ovulation as long
2:37·as the baby suckles the breast milk is
2:39·produced by the mother and this state
2:41·can be maintained over years the
2:43·suckling initiates a neuroendocrine
2:45·circuit that goes up to the hypothalamus
2:47·where it suppresses the gonadotropin
2:49·release which in turn suppresses
2:51·ovulation in the menstrual cycle but
2:53·lactose also regulates as the production
2:56·of lactase decreases over time
2:58·consequently it becomes more difficult
3:00·for the child to digest lactose causing
3:02·uncomfortable symptoms like gas and
3:04·diarrhea as the child starts to reject
3:06·the breast milk the mother weans the
3:08·child and this stops the cycle
3:09·preventing ovulation thus the lactose
3:12·cycle regulates optimal birth spacing
3:14·for humans so in general how it worked
3:16·for all animals Only the Young are able
3:18·to digest lactose which then makes it
3:21·even more weird that we drink the
3:22·lactose Laden milk of other mammals such
3:24·as cattle goats Buffalo camels and sheep
3:27·the whole point is that Mamon milk isn't
3:29·supposed to be digested after childhood
3:32·the domestication of goats and sheep and
3:34·later cattle and camels all animals used
3:36·for milk and general occurred during the
3:38·Neolithic Renaissance the period where
3:40·swas of humanity beginning in the
3:42·Fertile Crescent began to shift from
3:44·hunting and Gathering to semi-permanent
3:46·communities in fact brusel doesn't
3:48·Define the revolution from where we
3:50·lived but to how we lived it was he
3:53·argues the transition from food
3:54·collection to food
3:56·production at roughly the same time
3:58·people were domesticating grains like
4:00·wheat and barley as well as other early
4:02·crops including lentils peas chickpeas
4:04·and flax for
4:06·agriculture animals were domesticated
4:08·for many uses as beasts a burden for
4:10·their leather and as food the livestock
4:13·Conservancy an organization dedicated to
4:15·preserving livestock explains on their
4:16·website domestication did not happen
4:19·suddenly but was a slow process starting
4:20·with the hunting of wild goats gradually
4:23·communities started hurting their prey
4:25·then managing and breeding them
4:27·domestication made sense for many
4:28·reasons for examp example the climate in
4:30·East Africa in 2023 National Geographic
4:33·quoted Fiona Marshall an archaeologist
4:35·and Professor Amira at the University of
4:37·Washington in St Louis the Sahara was
4:40·drying and the less rain you have the
4:42·more unpredictable it is so it makes
4:44·much better sense to move animals where
4:46·the food is then wait for it to come to
4:48·any other place National Geographic also
4:51·gives the example of the Asian step the
4:53·step is a highway that connects Europe
4:55·to East Asia just a continuous stretch
4:57·of grass if you can survive there says
4:59·Christina Warner a Harvard
5:01·Anthropologist who researches early
5:03·human foods and the microbiome the short
5:05·growing season made it difficult to form
5:07·but herds of sheep and other ruminants
5:09·could Feast on the grass and convert it
5:11·into food for people including milk and
5:14·once domestication starts Dairy culture
5:16·also starts to make sense bruel explains
5:19·even when accounting for the lower
5:20·productivity of prehistoric cows and the
5:22·milk needed for raising the cows it was
5:24·estimated that about 200 kg of milk were
5:27·then a surplus per cow and per winning
5:29·period
5:30·over a 10-year period more calories
5:31·could be extracted from the milking cow
5:33·than contained in its body mass and you
5:35·could still kill the bull calf and
5:37·finally also the milking cow when milk
5:38·productivity decreases with age
5:41·economically Dairy culture makes a lot
5:43·of sense National Geographic notes it's
5:45·not mysterious while we might want to
5:47·drinking milk has a lot of benefits
5:49·especially when food is scarce herds of
5:51·sheep goats and cattle are a mobile and
5:53·renewable source of nutrition and clean
5:55·drinkable liquid able to thrive in
5:57·environments where humans otherwise do
5:59·do not but that leaves a conundrum Rell
6:02·notes how does this emergence of dairy
6:04·culture fit with lactose intolerance
6:06·that develops in humans after the
6:08·weaning period milk could not have been
6:10·easily digestible for the early farmers
6:13·because of that very problem many
6:15·scientists have theorized that there
6:16·were a few Millennia in between
6:18·domestication of animals and their
6:19·exploitation for secondary uses that did
6:21·not require killing the animal like wool
6:24·and milk professor of biochemistry
6:26·Richard P evered sought to answer that
6:28·question by analyzing early Pottery
6:30·vessels his work was published in a 2008
6:33·edition of nature Everett's results
6:35·showed sign that milk was being
6:37·collected 9,000 years ago that is within
6:40·a millennium of domestication in fact he
6:43·concluded they were probably milking
6:45·before the invention of pots so how is
6:48·it that people were consuming Dairy
6:49·without the ability to digest
6:52·lactose early on brusso speculates and
6:55·there is growing evidence to support his
6:56·claim humans first needed to domesticate
6:58·yet another of creature lactic acid
7:01·bacteria which could be used to ferment
7:03·milk into cheese and yogurt which lasts
7:05·longer and is lower in lactose in some
7:08·places we might also have been
7:09·developing a tolerance through gut
7:11·bacteria Harvard Anthropologist
7:13·Christine Warner looked at milk proteins
7:15·preserved in dental calculus to try to
7:17·determine when people started drinking
7:18·milk in Mongolia the work was published
7:20·in the proceedings of the National
7:21·Academy of Sciences in
7:23·2018 among the findings was that people
7:26·who live in the countryside seem to
7:27·process lactose more easily than than
7:29·those who live in cities the gut
7:31·microbiome bacteria may be assisting she
7:34·says well that's not surprising people
7:36·might have had to develop similar
7:38·changes in gut bacteria to digest the
7:40·starches in wheat people also May simply
7:43·have moderated intake as part of a
7:45·diverse diet calories may have been
7:47·important enough that consuming milk was
7:48·worth the discomfort in 2022 Scientific
7:52·American quoted Mark Thomas an
7:53·evolutionary geneticist at University
7:55·College London if you're healthy you get
7:58·a bit of diarrhea and you get cramps and
8:00·you fart a lot it's unpleasant but
8:01·you're not going to die but at some
8:04·point around 6,000 years ago humans in
8:06·parts of the world particularly Europe
8:08·started to change as people started to
8:09·develop lactase persistence they G the
8:12·ability to continue to produce lactase
8:15·well how did this happen and why did it
8:16·take so long to occur after people began
8:18·consuming milk Scientific American
8:21·looked at evered's work to find some
8:22·answers in brief they argue that likely
8:25·some people always had a degree of
8:26·lactase persistence but most of the time
8:29·it didn't make a significant difference
8:31·however the researchers proposed that
8:33·the consequences of milk drinking among
8:34·lactose intolerant people long ago would
8:36·have been much more severe for those who
8:38·are in ill health as a result of famine
8:41·or infection fluid loss through diarrhea
8:44·contributes to Deaths through
8:45·malnutrition and infection especially in
8:47·places with poor sanitation the
8:49·researchers model found that lactase
8:51·persistence was more likely to occur in
8:53·ancient populations exposed to animal
8:54·pathogens and famine than in those
8:56·exposed to other factors examined the
8:59·team proposes that natural selection for
9:01·lactose tolerance was turbocharged
9:03·during such periods when lactose
9:05·intolerant individuals would have been
9:07·more likely to die than people who lack
9:09·the suddenly beneficial Gene
9:10·variation so we were consuming Dairy for
9:13·Millennia before the lactase persistent
9:15·genes became common because lactose
9:17·intolerance was only a small
9:18·disadvantage but when we hit hard times
9:21·when lactase persistence was more
9:23·critical to survival simply put more of
9:25·those with that Gene live to have
9:27·children Scientific American includes
9:30·the variant that most people of European
9:32·ancestry carry is one of the strongest
9:33·examples of natural selection on the
9:36·human
9:37·genome this suggests that milk actually
9:39·changed Humanity but also that milk
9:41·helped Humanity survive difficult times
9:43·also explains why lactose intolerance
9:45·has
9:46·survived in fact a 2017 study published
9:49·in the lanet concludes that an estimated
9:51·68% of the global human population lack
9:54·the gene for lactase persistence
9:56·inability to digest lactose is actually
9:58·the norm even among many societies that
10:00·include Dairy as a significant part of
10:02·their diet if the idea that our food
10:05·physically changed our genetic makeup is
10:06·surprising it shouldn't be the livestock
10:09·Conservancy notes that the same was true
10:10·of domesticated grains as agricultural
10:13·communities developed and cereals became
10:14·a common staple for people and livestock
10:17·both humans and goats develop resistance
10:18·to fugle toxins present in
10:21·Grain so milk was an essential part of
10:23·early civilization Dairy was an
10:25·important part of the diet in Ancient
10:26·India China and later Japan but milk was
10:29·consumed differently in some places
10:31·empir rome.com writes that milk in
10:34·ancient Rome was mainly used for making
10:35·cheeses and medical purposes only milk
10:38·was also considered an uncivilized drink
10:40·hence why Romans did not drink it unless
10:42·it was
10:43·necessary it is believed the lower
10:45·classes and slaves drank goat milk for
10:47·subsistence but in limited quantities
10:50·the website medieval recipes.com notes
10:52·that fresh milk was not common in
10:53·medieval recipes it was an important
10:55·source of animal protein for many people
10:57·who could not afford meat however plain
10:59·fresh milk was not widely available nor
11:01·was it consumed by adults in general
11:03·milk was actually reserved for the sick
11:05·and very poor and most often for the
11:06·very young or elderly it was combined
11:08·with eggs and heated up to be a thick
11:10·mixture the medial term for it was
11:12·coddle most people drank buttermilk or
11:15·whe or milk that was soured or diluted
11:17·with water in any case because of its
11:20·perishable nature most Dairy was
11:21·consumed as a fermented product as
11:23·cheese or yogurt or butter which lasted
11:25·longer milk was primarily consumed on
11:27·the farm shortly after being harvested
11:28·through the 18th century raw milk can
11:31·pass a host of diseases including
11:33·typhoid fever scarlet fever tuberculosis
11:35·and diptheria the US Department of
11:37·Agriculture notes that in Rural America
11:39·milk and milk products were made
11:41·primarily for home or local use Daniel
11:44·Fernandez wrote in Scientific American
11:45·in 2018 for most of History humans
11:48·weren't interested in the direct
11:49·consumption of animal milk instead the
11:52·early milkers of the Fertile Crescent
11:53·transformed it into sour yogurt butter
11:55·and cheese the hot climate caused milk
11:58·to quickly spoil
12:00·that is while milk has been part of the
12:01·human diet for thousands of years
12:03·scripts news service noted in
12:05·2023 modern milk consumption is a
12:08·product of the last 150
12:10·years as population moved into the
12:13·cities during the Industrial Revolution
12:14·the industrialization of milk was not
12:16·exactly wholesome Fernandez writes sold
12:18·by firms hoping to maximize their
12:20·profits so-called swill milk came from
12:22·dairy cows that were fed the steaming
12:24·remains of grain distillation these cows
12:27·lived in nearby stables and miserable
12:29·conditions most only survive for only a
12:31·few months and produce a sickly bluish
12:33·milk to mass this ghastly color the
12:36·distilleries added chalk eggs flour
12:38·water molasses and other substances
12:41·local Distributors then purchased this
12:42·toxic concoction from the distilleries
12:44·and brazenly marketed as Pure Country
12:47·milk an editorial at the time lamented
12:50·for the midnight assassin we have the
12:51·rope and The Gallows for the robber the
12:53·penitentiary but for those who murder
12:55·our children by the thousands we have
12:57·neither reprobation nor punishment
13:00·the deaths of 2third of the children in
13:02·New York and Brooklyn could be
13:03·distinctly traced to the use of impure
13:05·milk and it wasn't only New York
13:07·Fernandez explains thousands of children
13:09·from Boston to Chicago to San Francisco
13:11·died each year from the contaminated
13:13·swill Fernandez wrote that public outcry
13:16·eventually led many distilleries to
13:17·close their deleterious dairies or the
13:20·very least clean up their operations but
13:22·swill milk is one example of how milk
13:24·itself was not trusted off the farm so
13:27·how did that change there were
13:29·technological innovations during the
13:31·Industrial Age the Department of
13:33·Agriculture notes that with the movement
13:34·of population from the Farms to the
13:36·cities at the turn of the century it
13:37·became necessary to mass-produce and
13:39·improve the quality of milk significant
13:41·inventions such as commercial milk
13:43·bottles milking machines tuberculin
13:45·tests for cattle pasteurization
13:47·equipment refrigerated milk tank cars
13:49·and automatic bottling machines
13:51·contributed towards making milk a
13:52·healthful and commercially viable
13:54·product but it took a significant
13:56·technological breakthrough to really
13:57·change public Trust but pasteurization
14:00·was not initially the miracle we might
14:01·think of today the website of organic
14:04·valley Cooperative explains Louis pure's
14:06·1864 Innovation first made its impact on
14:09·wine and beer it took 20 years until a
14:12·German chemist named France Von soat
14:15·proposed applying the process to milk
14:17·and even then it was not an easy sell
14:19·Fernandez notes that there was little
14:21·doubt that the process improved milk
14:22·safety by eliminating the diseases that
14:24·led to so many deaths but consumers
14:26·complained that pasteurized milk was
14:27·flavorless some officials including
14:30·Harvey Wy then the director of the US
14:32·Bureau of chemicals also argued that
14:34·pasteurized milk lost its nutritional
14:36·values it took a 1908 report by the
14:39·Surgeon General to change attitudes even
14:41·though it was somewhat tepid in itself
14:43·while pasteurization is not the ideal to
14:45·be sought practically it is forced Upon
14:47·Us by present conditions it prevents
14:49·much sickness and saves many lives
14:52·Russell Courier of the American
14:53·Veterinary Medical History Society noted
14:56·in a 2018 edition of the Journal of food
14:58·protection that pasteurization reduced
15:00·infectious diseases with their High
15:02·infant mortality rates by half meanwhile
15:05·culture was changing too Script quotes
15:08·Kendra Smith Howard an associate
15:09·professor of history at the University
15:11·of Albany milk becomes popular in the
15:13·United States in the late 19th and early
15:15·20th century as a result of women
15:16·shifting away from feeding infants at
15:18·home in 2015 correspondent ronic
15:21·Greenwood of the BBC noted that around
15:24·the same time there was a growing
15:25·interest in treating people through food
15:27·giving the sick the only pure simplest
15:29·things to eat was an idea espoused by
15:31·John Harvey Kellogg the inventor of the
15:33·cornflake and head doctor of the famous
15:35·sanitarium in Michigan and many others
15:37·like him but Greenwood also notes that
15:40·the temperance movement affected
15:41·consumption different countries have
15:43·their own interesting variations on this
15:45·tale around the turn of the 20th century
15:46·in Germany writes University of Basil
15:48·historian Barbara Orland the Advent of
15:51·grown men drinking milk was closely
15:52·intertwined with Temperance movements as
15:54·well as with the search for simple
15:55·healthy foods in an attempt to shift the
15:58·culture of drinking beer and Spirits
16:00·especially in Factory workers Temperance
16:02·groups opposed to drinking alcohol press
16:04·for the serving of milk in factories
16:06·they even set up milk booths in towns
16:08·with some success milk was also
16:10·influenced by War scripts notes that
16:12·American efforts during World War I
16:14·contributed to increased milk production
16:15·too according to Federal Reserve records
16:18·America exported more than $79 Million
16:21·worth of condensed milk overseas between
16:23·1915 and
16:24·1918 author e Melanie dup explained in
16:28·her 20 into history of milk called
16:30·Nature's perfect food that at the end of
16:32·the war there's overproduction and
16:34·they're really in economic trouble so
16:36·this is really a time when the
16:37·government is stepping in milk then
16:39·starts to become associated with
16:40·americanness right as a kind of almost
16:43·patriotic food that if you feed milk to
16:45·children they will become Americans
16:47·Smith Howard explains that in the 1910s
16:49·and 1920s United States Department of
16:51·Agriculture really emphasized that milk
16:53·was a nutritionally complete food that
16:55·had the appropriate level of fats and
16:56·proteins and sugars all in one component
16:58·the government also used programs such
17:00·as the 1940 Federal milk program for
17:02·schools and the 1946 national school
17:04·lunch act to drive consumption to
17:06·Children this government support had the
17:09·average American scripts notes drinking
17:11·750 cups of milk annually World War II
17:15·also impacted milk the website
17:17·plant-based news notes that skim milk a
17:19·byproduct of butter production was
17:21·generally considered to be a waste
17:22·product prior to the 1930s so much was
17:25·routinely dumped in rivers that the news
17:27·writes the government was forced to put
17:28·a stop to it due to the horrific odor of
17:30·spoiled milk that permeated the
17:32·surrounding areas but during the war
17:34·powdered skim milk was used as a relief
17:36·food after the war there was a surplus
17:39·so to chisel down the Surplus the
17:41·industry employed skilled marketers to
17:43·position skim milk as a weight loss food
17:45·milk dealers received backing from
17:47·Physicians to Pedal this product as a
17:48·health food and by the 1950s skim milk
17:51·had transformed from a waste byproduct
17:53·to a trendy weight loss beverage mostly
17:55·consumed by the affluent
17:57·society the news rights that tends to be
18:00·a theme in milk's history made too much
18:02·turned to clever marketing this could
18:05·backfire the news writes that when in
18:07·1977 President Jimmy Carter allowed $2
18:10·billion in federal money to be funneled
18:12·into the dairy industry over the course
18:14·of four years to address a milk Surplus
18:16·Dairy Farmers ramped up production to
18:18·take advantage of this government
18:19·subsidy which resulted in yet a greater
18:22·Surplus this then resulted in a cultural
18:24·icon government cheese the news
18:27·continues the tun to rot milk was
18:29·homogenized into government cheese and
18:31·then held in vast underground storage
18:33·units across 35 States but mu juice took
18:36·a dive in the latter half of the 20th
18:38·century scripts reports that us perer
18:40·consumption of milk decreased by almost
18:42·half between 1970 and 2010 the result of
18:45·changing attitudes about health changing
18:47·lifestyle to grab and go meals where
18:49·milk doesn't fit in so well and
18:51·competition from plant-based milk
18:53·Alternatives and milk consumption has
18:56·continued to decline according to the US
18:57·Department of Agriculture Americans
18:59·drank 130 lb of liquid milk per person
19:02·in 2022 down from 196 lb in the year
19:06·2000 even though in 2023 Americans ate a
19:10·record amount of cheese still scripts
19:13·notes that the dairy milk sales in
19:15·America topped $ 15.7 billion in 2022
19:19·which is more than seven times that of
19:21·the plant-based milk
19:23·Alternatives and yet this odd human
19:27·relationship was something that's
19:28·frankly weird to drink is an indelible
19:30·part of human history even if its future
19:32·is somewhat uncertain Mark kolansky
19:35·wrote in his 2018 book milk a
19:37·10,000-year frus that milk is a central
19:40·part of the Theology of the samarians of
19:42·the Greeks and of the Egyptians the fani
19:45·of West Africa believed that the world
19:47·began with a single drop of milk and
19:49·there's a Norse legend that a cow made
19:51·from thawing Frost sustained the world
19:53·in its earliest days heck milk is even
19:56·part of our Cosmos our galaxy after all
19:59·is called the Milky
20:03·Way I hope you enjoyed watching this
20:05·episode of the history guy and if you
20:07·did please feel free to like And
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1 posted on 03/24/2025 7:29:11 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
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2 posted on 03/24/2025 7:30:14 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: SunkenCiv
Wikipedia disputes that lactose is found in Forsythia:

There is a long-standing belief that forsythia flowers produce lactose, but lactose occurs only very rarely in natural sources other than milk, and attempts to find lactose in forsythia have been unsuccessful.[8]

3 posted on 03/24/2025 7:40:05 PM PDT by gundog (The ends justify the mean tweets. )
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Last five years or so of the rest of the 'milk' keyword, and then some, sorted, duplicates out, and I'm going to bed, so that's all:

4 posted on 03/24/2025 7:48:35 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: SunkenCiv

You owe me a new scrolling finger.


5 posted on 03/24/2025 7:48:40 PM PDT by Laslo Fripp (Does anybody proofread anymore?)
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To: gundog

Wow, that’s even weirder than the history of milk. :^)


6 posted on 03/24/2025 7:49:47 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: SunkenCiv
White Milk is good for you.

7 posted on 03/24/2025 7:50:28 PM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie ( O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious, and His mercy endureth forever. — Psalm 106)
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To: Laslo Fripp

The scrolling finger scrolls, and having scrolled, scrolls on...


8 posted on 03/24/2025 7:53:31 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Putin should skip ahead to where he kills himself in the bunker.)
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To: Governor Dinwiddie

I prefer yellow Guernsey milk. Easier to digest and better for you.


9 posted on 03/24/2025 8:03:05 PM PDT by Harmless Teddy Bear ( Not my circus. Not my monkeys. But I can pick out the clowns at 100 yards.)
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To: SunkenCiv

That’s easy to explain. You never let the kids name the beef cattle, because you don’t want them to get too attached to the future steaks and burgers. You do let the kids name the dairy cows, because that encourages them to take better care of the cows. The cows are aware of this class difference and feel much more secure, and therefore produce more milk, once they know that they have names and thus are unlikely to be butchered in the fall.


10 posted on 03/24/2025 8:07:24 PM PDT by Flatus I. Maximus (I didn't leave the Democratic Party. It LEFT me, and keeps going further left. )
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To: SunkenCiv

I love milk!


11 posted on 03/24/2025 8:09:57 PM PDT by Inyo-Mono
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To: SunkenCiv
Funny. My wife won't touch milk except in her coffee or tea. But I have cereal nearly every morning.

And there are certain foods I must have a glass of milk with: Apple pie. Chocolate Chip Cookies. Chocolate cake. Cinnamon buns!

I don't drink milk by itself, but there are some things I just can't enjoy without milk! And, ideally, it has to be whole milk. I would nearly rather have a glass of water than skim milk with them. 2% is nearly tolerable.

When I was a kid and lived on military bases overseas, my parents purchase reconstituted milk at the base exchange. It was reconstituted from powder and sold in milk containers. I didn't like it, it was watery and had a weird taste, but...drinking it for five years, I got used to it.

When we came back to the states, drinking a glass of whole milk felt like drinking a glass of heavy whipping cream!

As for cows-I love me some cows! Just wonderful creatures!

My wife and I stayed at a working dairy farm in Vermont for about a week one time, and I loved it. It was great. If you wanted to experience dairy farming...you could help out and do stuff. If you didn't, it was no big deal.

There were two or three families there, all with kids, and each night they served food at a large table that would seat 15-20 people, and the food they served communally would nearly kill you...farm fare, heavy, made for people who worked all day. They had an enormous barn, and I mean huge, that on the second story of it was chock full of hay bales with small walkways you could navigate through. Some of the bales were just completely broken and scattered from people walking and sitting on them. Disbursed and scattered were rusty farm equipment and implements that had been hoisted up there decades ago, never to see the light of day again. It was a real trip. One of the teenagers from one of the families lost the keys to the family car up there, and everyone, the farmers and the guests were combing through it, looking for those car keys. There was absolutely no chance we were going to find the, the kid had no idea where he lost them, and I fully understood the needle in the haystack paradigm.

Fully.

The family realized that one of the parents was going to have to return to Boston to get a spare set of keys, so the farmer drove the father to the train station, and off he went! It was a 300 mile round trip, and he returned late the next day with the keys.

While I was at that farm, they had several calves birthed, and they would stick the calf in the front of a front loader with one of the employees, and take it up to the row of calf pens. It was very routine and it all seemed quite businesslike.

Later in the day, as I sat on the porch watching, one of the employees went to clean the pens, looked in, and waved to the farmer who was perhaps 100 yards away, and when she got his attention, she drew her finger across her throat. One of the calfs had died.

They just got the front loader, put the dead calf in it, and took it down to a ditch they dug and buried it. That was it. Very businesslike. It was true that death was completely a part of life on a farm.

But they completely did not have to use any force at all that I saw the entire time they were there. They pretty much just steered the cows where they wanted them to go, and when they were done, steered them somewhere else.

At some point, a number of the cows broke out and went up to the pens that had the calves. They just walked up to the cows, and led all of them back to the cow shed.

They seemed like contented cows, and the staff seemed very unstressed. Even when a couple of pigs got out, the farmer just matter of factly got them back into their pen.

The whole workflow seemed extremely structured, predictable and a bit quiet and sedate. 4 AM to 10 AM, milking #1. 4 PM to 10 PM, milking #2. All kinds of steady work and cleaning in between.

Very different pace of work. It didn’t appear to be back breaking work, but it was 100% steady and paced.

I talked to a young man in his late teens or early twenties, and he said he loved the work. I asked him if he grew up on a dairy farm, and he said no, but his sister dated one of the farmer’s sons, and they asked him once if he wanted some work, and...now that is his livelihood.

I think I could understand how someone could love that work. My work is hair on fire work. I didn’t see a lot of things on that farm to make your hair catch on fire there. They had some pigs escape, and that was the most excitement.

One day it poured rain torrentially all day, and I asked the farmer if I could explore the property, and the farmer said sure, go anywhere you want...he suggested if I was interested, to take a look at their prize bull.

So, it was pouring rain and all mud, so I put on rain gear and walked down to where there was a structure with hundreds of cows milling about. They stopped and regarded me, gazing with their cow-like. bored and uninterested look as they chewed their cud.

I began to look for the bull, but it only took a second to see him. His silhouette protruded FAR above the backs of all the cows, he was that big. It was so big that it startled me.

And when I saw him, he had is eyes unflinchingly locked right on me.

It wasn't the dull, bored, disinterested look of the cows, it was a laser-focus look, brimming with hostility for all things human, a look that made me feel distinctly uncomfortable.

And it didn't waver during the fifteen minutes I was poking around. I haven't spent much time around livestock, but I would wager that bull was somewhere between 1000-1500 lbs. And it was all muscle.

As I walked around, I could FEEL the thing looking at me, and when I turned around...it sure was. At one point, it put its front legs on top of some structure in the pen, and with an immediate feeling of danger, I thought "Jesus Christ. That thing can get out of there!" Then it went over to the gate and began pounding its head against the gate, and I thought "If that thing were to get out, I would be a grease spot."

I decided I had enough sightseeing and left.

That was extremely intimidating.

12 posted on 03/24/2025 8:13:51 PM PDT by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
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To: SunkenCiv
Re: Post #4

I did not see any links to chocolate milk.

You did have one about vegans and milk.

Why do vegans want to pretend they are consuming animals they are against consuming?

13 posted on 03/24/2025 8:18:32 PM PDT by Deaf Smith (When a Texan takes his chances, chances will be taken that's for sure.)
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To: rlmorel

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Jxph6zErgYI&pp=ygUcTmV3bWFuLCB0aGUgY2xlYW5lciwgbXVmZmlucw%3D%3D


14 posted on 03/24/2025 8:23:03 PM PDT by gundog (The ends justify the mean tweets. )
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To: Flatus I. Maximus

Hahaha...I work in IT with one of the most brilliant people I have known in my life, a completely squared away and grounded guy who had six kids by the time he was 35!

He steadfastly refused to get them dogs or cats, but now they have an English Bulldog and a French Bulldog.

But back when they didn’t have pets, he told them they could raise chickens, because they could get fresh eggs from them.

His kids wanted to name them, and he said “No. I will name them for you. That one is going to be Honey Mustard. That one is going to be Barbecue. That one is going to be named Ranch.”

He said his youngest daughter said “Dad! Why are you giving them such silly names?” to which he answered “In case we need to eat them, we will know what sauce to put on them.”

Heh, that is how he dealt with his kids.

When he was buying his house, the realtor showing it to him said, while showing him the swimming pool that had no fence around it: “Well, of course, you would need to build a fence around it with kids so none of them will fall in.”

He said matter of factly with a completely straight face: “Not a problem. If something happens to one of them, we will make another one.”

He said the realtor looked at him aghast, her mouth hanging open!


15 posted on 03/24/2025 8:24:48 PM PDT by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
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To: gundog

Hahahahaha! I have only seen one Seinfeld episode, the Soup Nazi!

Now, that one you linked to was pretty funny! I will be retiring soon-maybe I will watch some Seinfeld!


16 posted on 03/24/2025 8:28:00 PM PDT by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
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To: SunkenCiv

This was interesting to me.

I grew up drinking milk like water. I think (hope) that it made for good bones.

It seems that we’ve developed to largely overcome a lot of sensitivities to different foods, to wind up truly ‘omnivorous’.

I was waiting for them to discuss the Hindu attitude toward cows. A lot of people believe that the Hindus ‘worship’ the cow; but that isn’t true. They respect and revere the cow as a symbol of maternity and maternal care and nourishment; and for the bounty of dairy products that the cow provides.


17 posted on 03/24/2025 8:29:54 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: Flatus I. Maximus

Now we need a scientific study to determine which names make for the most productive cows.

Does ‘Bossie’ produce more than ‘Brunhilde’?


18 posted on 03/24/2025 8:34:31 PM PDT by Jamestown1630 ("A Republic, if you can keep it.")
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To: rlmorel
Bulls are funny. Until they’re not. I used to feed apples to my grandfather’s bull. I stayed out of the pasture he was in, though. The worst I ever thought he’d do was follow me to...and maybe into...the house, for more apples.

I think cows account for more deaths than bulls, simply because there are more of them.

19 posted on 03/24/2025 8:35:44 PM PDT by gundog (The ends justify the mean tweets. )
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To: gundog

I have heard that farmers can have a congenial relationship with their bull, but I have also heard that farmers are quite wary around their bulls, never trusting them very much.

That sounds smart to me...

I was completely intimidated by that huge animal. It oozed a malignant dislike of ME...I could feel it.


20 posted on 03/24/2025 8:42:29 PM PDT by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
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