This is probably more valid than it seems. Even in India, adults don’t really drink milk because it’s considered a child’s drink. It’s even an insult - “dudh-pitahua baccha”, or, “milk-drinking child”.
I was about to quibble with the “Asians don’t eat dairy” blanket statement by pointing out that Indians do cook with cheese and butter. Mmmm, paneer.
Fascinating! I’ve read justifications for the sacred status of cows in India that boil down to “they’re more useful as a source of dairy than as beef.” But I take it that dairy is normally in the form of butter or cheese?
Drinking milk as an adult is not really the norm in the U.S. either - though in my experience it seems to be seen as more an adorable quirk than something to be embarrassed about.
I’m surprised no one asked why bread is rare among Asians too?
Milk, in my experience in India, is only for kiddies. We eat tons of yogurt, though, as well as cheese.
Justifications for the sacred status of cows? Krishna said the cows were to be worshiped, since they were the ones who really gave us stuff, not the kings or the government. We’re a nation of farmers by history. And besides, Krishna was a cowherd as a teen.
Oh one more thing. The butter. Dear people, if you have not had fresh-made butter in your life you have been missing out. It’s like the sweet whipped butter you get in the store, only much much better. Our god Krishna was a butter-thief as a child, and with good reason. It’s divine.
As for drinking milk as an adult in the U.S., I do. 
They thought it was really weird in India. When I was 10 and visited, they had to buy me special milk in little plastic bags (pasteurized) because I wouldn’t drink fresh cow’s milk. Blah!
Oh…now I want my mamiji’s fresh pronti & makhan at 7 AM…waa!
Milk sold in combinis (corner stores) is not particularly unusual by North American standards, at least. Milk is sold in 250 mL, 500 mL and 1 L cartons with about the same elapsed expiry dates as I’m used to in Canada.
This is not universal in India. Among my adult relatives, there are many who drink milk daily. My grandfather had been beginning his days with cornflakes and milk and ending them with a glass of milk (always warmed) since the 1920s. Milk is the primary source of protein for my mother-in-law. She shudders with the horror at the thought that there exists something called lactose intolerance.
Really?! May I ask, what state you are from? I am Punjabi, and for sure that’s an insult in Punjabi terrain. My family drinks NO milk (adults).
In the aforementioned Good to Eat AKA ** The Sacred Cow and the Abominable Pig** by Harris he makes much of the place of cow and water buffalo mil products in the Indian diet – butter, I understand, features heavily in cooking , and I recall milkmaids and butter showing up in Hindu mythology, so it seems weird that anyone would say that dairy isn’t important in India. What is surprising is that it’s not important in China, where water buffalo are used as draft animals. Harris goes into that, too.
We are ethnically Bengali (originally from East Bengal) and most of my older relatives live in Calcutta (the rest are scattered throughout India – Delhi, Bombay, Madras, Banaras, Hyderabad), but my grandfather lived all over, including Jallandar, Bangalore, and Banaras. My in laws are Bengalis and have always lived in what is now part of Jharkhand.
Page on Marvin Harris.
He explains the lack of dairy in Chinese culture on the fact that the Chinese have long been living in crowded cities in which the pig has traditionally been the main meat-supplying mammal. Pigs are extremely difficult to milk. But pigs are scavengers and so can be bred in large numbers in places that cannot support herds of cattle or other milk-producing animals. And while the northeast and north central areas horses and mules were prevalent, this did not create a dairy culture in the rest of the country. China also has comparatively less land available for production than India so even farms were not suitable for animals other than pigs and fowl. This is trying to boil down a chapter into a paragraph but the basics of land vs. animal are his argument.
One comment on Blake, who said “The gut flora for the most part play no role in digesting lactose.”
It’s true that the symptoms of gas and bloating and flatulence come from bacteria in the colon that ferment rather than digest lactose. But any dairy food with live cultures - yogurt today in the U.S., but also a variety of fermented drinks in various cultures - will colonize the small intestine with bacteria that digest lactose. This is also the basis for the probiotic pills that claim to reduce LI symptoms or even “cure” LI. They work very well in most people and are probably the single greatest reason why the numbers of people who “should” be LI because of their genetic heritage can have dairy products without reporting any symptoms.
I have tried yogurt with live cultures on several occasions – sometimes daily for a couple of weeks – and I find no relief from symptoms of lactose intolerance.
Mapcase’s Rule #22A: Nothing works for everybody.
Having done contract work for Kraft, and being the grandson of a cheesemaker, I offer my periodic lecture about American cheese.
There are three types of American cheese slices. Ranked from good to bad, they are:
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American Cheese. Contains only cheese and emulsifying salts. McDonald’s uses slices of aged American cheese on its hamburgers and fish sandwiches. Kraft sells this as Kraft Deli Deluxe American Cheese.
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American Cheese Food. Contains as little as 51% cheese. The rest is filler like whey, skim milk, and water. Kraft sells this as Kraft Singles American Pasteurized Process Cheese Food.
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American Cheese Product. Contains 50% or less cheese. Tasteless crap.
Eh, bread is pretty common as rolls type breads among lowlander Filipinos. We have different kinds, among them Pan de Sal (which is similar to a dinner roll), Pan De Coco (bread with a sweet coconut filling), Monay (moh-nai) a heavier type of bread, Pan de Leche - a sweet roll, and even steamed buns, like Siopao, which come from the Chinese who settled there. A Filipino company called “Goldilocks” makes loaf style breads also.
In the Philippines, milk isn’t used for main dishes or sides really, for creaminess coconut is usually used. Milk is found more in desserts like leche flan (custard), ice creams (Goldilocks makes buko pandan, mango, ube, red bean, more), and even in things like avocado shakes (Avocados are used in desserts in the Philippines.) The only time i’ve seen cheese used is in desserts, like Queso y Maiz ice cream (Yes, you read right, cheese and corn), and cassava cake, which has cheese on top.
This use of dairy is no doubt due to the influence of the Spaniards. Most Filipinos I know tend not to be lactose intolerant, but quite a few are.
[total hijack]Your grandpa was from Jullandher? So was mine! That makes us family. :)[/hijack]
BTW, CalMeacham, don’t know if you were replying to me with “so it seems weird that anyone would say that dairy isn’t important in India” but I simply meant *milk * wasn’t very important except for children. *Dairy * is very important.
I never said that lactose tolerant people don’t have bacteria in their gut capable of breaking down lactose. In fact quite the opposite. Lactose is simply a sugar and it would be astounding if the microbial flora of any place in Earth wre incapble of digesting it.
What I did say was that the gut flora play little role in dealing with lactose, and that is perfectly true. The lactose is dealt with by intestinial enzymes long before the gut flora get much of a chance to chomp on it. That’s true of almost all foods. Their are bacteria in the gut that can digest starch and albumin and lipids as well, but under normal circunstances they don’t play a great role in digesting them, they exist as scavengers trying to get to those things before the body can harvest them or living on the scraps that the body can’t get to.
As for the claim that bacterial cultures can aid in the symproms of LI, I’d like to ask for a reputable (ie non-commercial) reference that they actually work. To the best of my knowledge they don’t have any effect. The problem is that the gut of any normal human already has plenty of bugs that can mineralise lactose. That minerlaisation is what causes the gas buildup. Adding more bugs isn’t going to have much beneficial effect that I can see unless they somehow manage to mineralise a carbohydrate without producing any gaseous wastes.
That’s only true if your body makes the lactase enzyme, i.e. if you are not lactose intolerant. The entire point of lactose intolerance is that undigested lactose reaches the colon.
You are simply wrong. This has been well-known for decades and can be found in any standard work on LI. Here are a few online links to start with:
Probiotics, or friendly bacteria, can help fight digestive tract problems
Add Probiotics to Your Diet and Boost or Improve Your Immune System
And check out this page on Lactagen and the pages it references on other probiotics for LI.
Mineralise? That’s gibberish, unless the word has an entirely different meaning in British usage. Different types of intestinal bacteria either digest or ferment lactose in the colon. I go into considerable detail in this thread. Probiotic Lactobacillus species are entirely different from the variety of bacteria that ferment lactose. They in fact produce lactase, the enzyme that digests lactose. These simpler sugars are then absorbed into the body without causing gas.
North Indians as a group tend to be lactose tolerant (~ 75%), while South Indians tend to be lactose intolerant (only ~ 30% are lactose tolerant). So while both groups will cook with ghee or yogurt, South Indian cooking does not include any paneer.