So, your friend was in the bathtub where everyone was vomiting, and that was somehow better that trying to drink some milk, or at least faking it? There are very few things I dislike to that degree. Wow.
Well, I of course agree with you, but I guess my friend really doesn’t like milk. But yes, this is indeed a true story.
This was one of the first things I posted on the SDMB, and it’s still bugging me that I haven’t found a definitive answer yet. Bumped in hopes of eradicating this particular bit of ignorance…
It can be done. I have seen it done. Whole milk. Consumed in approx. 45 minutes. Kept down for approx. three hours. Came out both ends, but not quite simultaneously. No special preparation.
In my fraternity, the “whole milk challenge” had been a standing challenge for a few years. One of our brothers, a pretty big guy, with a big appetite, decided to try it. I witnessed the drinking. And later in the evening, happened to notice that he’d been in the bathroom for a while. So yes, it is possible.
I have never attempted myself, despite being well conditioned to milk (I used to regularly down a half gallon of 2% with dinner, and once did so with a dinner consisting of a box of Kraft Mac and Cheese). That’s mostly do to the fact that I’m a little guy, and don’t drink whole milk. As for liquids of any type, I drank two liters of lemonade and two liters of Coke during Spice World trying to get my money’s worth on the free refills with the two liter cup (and took two liters of Coke to drink afterwards, and pissed like a racehorse for several hours afterwards).
I’m pretty sure I could do it, and my stomache isn’t all that strong.
Milk is generally rather good for the stomache, at least compared to things like alcohol or coffee.
— G. Raven
I recall being taught (I think during CPR certification) that, if done incorrectly, CPR can cause an unconcious patient to voimt due to buildup of air in the stomach (IE: the air that one is pusjing into the patient can go into the stomach instead of the lungs if the head is not properly positioned). This, IIRC (though I’ve looked, and can’t find a good cite yet… only this…) is caused by overstimulation of the vagus nerve.
If the above is correct, then my guess is that most people can’t drink a gallon of liquid for the same reason… overstimulation of the vagus nerve causes vomiting.
Some people might be able to do it, though… I may try this tonight when I get home… needs me a gallon of beer, though!
Actually, what the EMTs who taught me my most recent refresher CPR course said was that EVERY patient they had ever performed CPR on had vomited. Every single one. “They don’t show you that on ER,” was the comment. That, plus the disheartening fact that nearly every single patient whom they had to give CPR to soon died–even if they were briefly resuscitated. (And, no, I don’t think it was b/c they were bad EMTs.)
Perhaps I should restate my OP. I don’t suppose that it’s completely, utterly impossible for anyone to drink a gallon of milk and keep it down, as it appears a few people here have or know someone who has.
However, it would seem that the odds are exceedingly against someone successfully completing that task. And there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence in this thread to support that, with the tales of frat initiations and radio station contests and whatnot. All of these seem to have been done in the expectation that people would consider it a deceptively easy challenge, and all of which, I would note, required someone to consume milk as opposed to any other liquid.
It also doesn’t seem to have to do with the sheer volume of liquid being consumed; both I and several other posters have downed a gallon or more of water/soda/etc. and suffered no ill effects (other than pissing a lot later). It seems that there’s something about milk in particular that makes this such a difficult challenge, and I want to figure out what it is.
So far the theories are:
[ul]
[li]lactose intolerancy[/li][li]more milkfat than the body can handle[/li][li]cramping due to lactic acid[/li][li]pH of milk (not too likely, as someone pointed out it’s close to neutral)[/li][li]the volume of liquid (also seems unlikely - see text above)[/li][li]one person who can’t handle that much liquid pukes, and the smell sets everyone else off[/li][li]milk is a “buffering solution”(?)[/li][li]overstimulation of the vagus nerve/air buildup in stomach (but one would think this would happen with a gallon of any liquid, not just milk)[/li][/ul]
This is just a shot in the dark, but it’s a different take:
A couple different factors may be working together here:
First, I think milk in general is hard for the body to process. It is much more complex than water, iced tea, what have you - it’s more than just ‘liquid’.
There is the lactose to process - this slows down the digestive process, so the milk stays in your stomach longer than water.
Also, this might be an old wives’ tale, but doesn’t milk go bad in your stomach if you exercise after you drink it? I know that is why athletes do not drink milk during rigorous exercise… the milk goes bad in their gut and they throw it up.
Under the two assumptions I’ve listed above
-
that milk stays in your gut a long time and is harder for the body to process, and
-
that it goes bad eventually,
then if you drank a gallon of milk in a single sitting, your body may not process it fast enough. Therefore, it sits in your stomach turning sour from your body heat, and you throw it up. Some people may be able to process the milk quickly enough, but apparently, many can’t.
All of this is a guess, but it seems logical (to me!)
Shief, Shief, Shief, this is still bothering you?
Why don’t you try what I recommended? You have established that you can drink a gallon of water or soda. Did you even try to drink a gallon of milk? What’s the worst that could happen? You’ll puke! Come ON, it’s for science!
First we must establish that milk is especially difficult to guzzle, then we will establish the reason. It very well may be that milk is more difficult, but we need proof first! And you must be our guinea pig, since I can’t drink a gallon of anything. If you puke up the whole milk, we could repeat the experiment with skim, or with lactose-free, or with acidophilus, or buttermilk, until we find a dairy product that you CAN keep down. We then compare the difference between the milk you can chug and the milk you can’t and draw our conclusions from that.
But we can’t even begin until we try the control experiment. And that means that you have a responsibility to start chugging. Surely you see the neccesity of experimental data?
We’ve had a few folks try this at work…
Here is a link to a co-workers page that discusses our efforts. BTW, this is from several years ago.
http://users.erinet.com/40878/toppage14.htm
There is also this link that appears on the above-mentioned page:
http://lynx.dac.neu.edu/e/eagrant/challengedetails.html
The guys in that link claim to have invented it, but the debate is still open on that point.
I’ve seen a guy drink a gallon of milk in about five minutes (one loooooong, awe-inspiring gulp that took about half the carton, followed by some smaller ones to finish it off), then hold it down for an hour. I don’t recall whether it was whole milk or 2% (my guess is that it was whole), but the way he guzzled it, I doubt it’d have made a difference. You could see his stomach inflate like a beach ball as he drained the carton; it was easily noticeable because he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
The gentleman in question had prepared himself by drinking a case of beer between the hours of 6 and 8 p.m. every night for about 20 years. (for those of you keeping track at home, that’s 12 oz/can X 24 cans = 288 oz. = 2.25 gallons). I think he was, like, an alcoholic or something. He actually committed suicide a few weeks after the milk-guzzle, but the milk didn’t have anything to do with it, AFAIK.
Okay, tell ya what. In my fridge, I have three gallons of skim milk and one gallon of whole, chocolate milk. Previously, I have drank about 1/2 gallon of egg nog in about half an hour, and while I felt a little oogy about it (and shit like a soldier later!) I didn’t ever feel barfy. I have to work tomorrow, but Wednesday I will drink a half gallon of skim and a half gallon of whole chocolate, for the SDMB’s threading pleasure. Okey dokey? 
–Tim
I doubt this is a problem. Milk goes sour because microorganisms convert lactose into lactic acid, raising the pH. Your stomach already has acid in it, effectively souring the milk as soon as it enters.
Referring to the topic at hand, I would believe the cause is related to milkfat. If you’ve eaten very rich desserts, such as a chocolate mousse, you may have felt very full, even sick, although you had a relatively small amount. Milk is basically fat suspended in water. Cream, even richer than milk, makes me (I’m not sure about others, but I would suspect the same) sick after drinking about 4 fl oz. Fat is probably the largest difference between milk and water or ice tea.
Ok guys, in the name of science.
My company is having a “happy hour” tonight, so I don’t think I’ll be in much shape to drink a gallon of anything when I get home, but tomorrow night I’ll give it a try and let you know how it went. Tim and I can compare notes.
–sublight.
Wow. Homer, Sublight, you guys don’t merely fight ignorance, you engage it in hand-to-hand combat. To think there’s Dopers out there willing to risk projectile vomiting just to answer my humble little question…why, it almost brings a tear to my eye.
What the hell, perhaps I’ll run by the store and grab a gallon myself after I get off work Wednesday night.
On another message board I read of someone being bet 20$ to finish off a shaker of salt. The guy only could finish 1/2 the shaker, but he still got the money. I’d be willing to shell out 40$ to anyone who can in my presence. If you think a gallon of milk would be rough, you’d not want to mess with salt. Hehe…any takers?
I heard that the chemical reaction between stomach acid and something in the milk causes the contents to expand in the stomach, thus not allowing the individual to “hold it down” for an hour. I heard it curdles, like cottage cheese or curds or something.
I don’t know, I am not a scientist, but this is what I have heard.
It is truely immpossible for one to drink a gallon of milk in one hour(without eating anything during the act). This has to do with the fact that humans shouldn’t really be drinking milk after we’re babies anyway. We are the only animals who consume dairy products after the infant stage. That’s why most of the population is lactose intollerant (some more so than others. Plus, who’d wanna drink that much milk anyway?
No, it’s not impossible, but there’s a lot going against it. Firstly, as has been alluded before, sheer volume is a problem. One would need to have a stomach stretched from binging, to be a good candidate to do this stupid and futile task. Secondly, the milk proteins curdle and sour upon exposure to the acid in the stomach. No big deal with a small amount, and a stomach that’s emptying normally, but the dilation slows emptying. It curdles, sits there, you get queasy. Thirdly, the milkfat. It further slows gastric emptying. So you end up with a huge dilated, distended stomach, filled with sour milk products, pressing against your gastro-esophageal sphincter, ready to reflux like hell. Vagus nerve gets stimulated by all of the above, the distended stomach, the reflux, and the signal from the stomach that it may have eaten something poisonous (engendered by the souring process). Body wants to spew upward in a big way.
To overcome, as I alluded before, you need someone who binges successfully. You also need to promote gastric emptying, so a pharmacologic agent to speed this process might help in the pre-loading phase. Reduce acid content in the stomach with a proton pump inhibitor, and choose a low-fat brand of milk. We could talk about a vagotomy (surgical procedure to sever the vagus nerve) to improve the odds further, but that’s really nuts.
Do all this, and you’ll still probably fail 75% of the time, but it’s not impossible.
note that I do not advocate this approach, this is for informational purposes only. Any monetary gain made by the individual doing this feat would be balanced against the health risks, such as vomiting and aspiration of the vomitus, with possible resultant pneumonia, Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome, ventilator-assisted respirations in the ICU, tracheotomy, brain damage, and death. Sex life could be affected detrimentally, too.
Qadgop, MD to the strangest people sometimes