51–60 of 181 posts
It doesn't really surprise me much that lactase persistence should be so strongly selected for in a relatively short period of time. Cows and other ungulates possess a rather magical ability to turn something that can't be digested by humans (cellulose) into something that can (milk). Opening up the huge caloric and nutrient resource of cellulose to humans in a relatively replenishable way had to be a giant benefit t…
Considering how obsessed we are with giving milk to kids because it’s so healthy, it doesn’t seem that crazy it would be a massive advantage to be able to drink it.
I'm somewhere between 100 and 100% sure that perception was manufactured by dairy industry marketing. It was a classic bernays strategy, create the perception that everyone is doing it than everyone will do it. The same strategy used to get people to both start and stop smoking 60 years later
It doesn't really surprise me much that lactase persistence should be so strongly selected for in a relatively short period of time. Cows and other ungulates possess a rather magical ability to turn something that can't be digested by humans (cellulose) into something that can (milk). Opening up the huge caloric and nutrient resource of cellulose to humans in a relatively replenishable way had to be a giant benefit t…
Lactase persistence isn't the only (or even first) way to convert inedible flora into food. For one, you can simply eat the cows, the way it was done for most of human history. If you absolutely insist on dairy though, the genes for lactase persistence post-date dairying by a few millennia and many people who rely primarily on dairy today still lack the genes, like most Mongolians. They've adapted different productio…
Humans were not hunting for most of their history [1]
[1] "The human adaptations to meat eating: a reappraisal" Claude Marcel Hladik, Patrick Pasquet https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00545795/document
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why wouldn’t we?? Have you seen a cow? :) An enzyme to break down milk seems to be such an easier adaptation compared to a whole series of stomach, which are basically a series of fermenters. Having raised goats the size of their rumens to body is pretty amazing.
Couldn't we have invented some way of doing all that cow-stomach stuff in a pot? Like cooking, grinding, fermenting etc, similar to how we turn other inedible plant stuff like wheat into yummy stuff like bread?
Or strong acids and 190°C over a catalyst.
Cellulose is remarkably strong, especially with lignin in the structure too. We're lucky anything can digest it at all.
Which brings me to mycology, probably the best way to extract energy from cellulose for humans. Sterilize, inoculate, keep moist, and harvest a significant percentage of the source material as good carbohydrates and protein.
It doesn't really surprise me much that lactase persistence should be so strongly selected for in a relatively short period of time. Cows and other ungulates possess a rather magical ability to turn something that can't be digested by humans (cellulose) into something that can (milk). Opening up the huge caloric and nutrient resource of cellulose to humans in a relatively replenishable way had to be a giant benefit t…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm somewhere between 100 and 100% sure that perception was manufactured by dairy industry marketing. It was a classic bernays strategy, create the perception that everyone is doing it than everyone will do it. The same strategy used to get people to both start and stop smoking 60 years later
Milk is nutritious though. Besides calories it also provides amino acids. For non first world communities it thus formed an essential part of a healthy diet.
"how obsessed we are with giving milk to kids because it’s so healthy"
The word "because" is a fascinating bridge. Whatever follows after reveals unstated assumptions hidden deep in the speakers mind.
I'm objecting to the specific premise that it's some rational decision made individually by each parent based upon nutrition.
Instead I'm claiming our cultural habit of feeding of milk to children is entirely manufactured by the organizations that produce it. There's lots of documentation to demonstrate this.
Whether or not it's a good idea is immaterial.
I've honestly never seen anyone within that research domain state otherwise, maybe you can enrich my knowledge there.
I and other readers are excitedly open to new perspectives
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Cheese has about the same lactose as milk, doesn't it?
Hard cheeses contain almost no lactose; it's consumed by bacteria during the maturation process.
Considering how obsessed we are with giving milk to kids because it’s so healthy, it doesn’t seem that crazy it would be a massive advantage to be able to drink it.
I'm somewhere between 100 and 100% sure that perception was manufactured by dairy industry marketing. It was a classic bernays strategy, create the perception that everyone is doing it than everyone will do it. The same strategy used to get people to both start and stop smoking 60 years later
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0301446080268046...
https://academic.oup.com/advances/article-abstract/10/suppl_... (a "maybe", but also increased mineralization)
https://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/18/6/1881.short
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1570677X1...
https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=2867428133...