# Why no milk when you have a cold? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 27, 2008, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952 "2008-03-27T18:39:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Open\_Your\_Eyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@Open\_Your\_Eyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Open_Your_Eyes)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/1 "2008-03-27T18:39:03Z")
Puzzled by this for many years since I was young, I decided to finally ask this. My mother never allowed me to drink milk when I had colds, which was quite an annoying restriction since I love eating cereal for breakfast and we all know we need milk with cereal. When I asked her why, she said milk aids in the production of mucus. Not wishing to go against my mother’s beliefs, I agreed and avoided dairy products for a week. But now, I’m curious when, watching my local news station some time ago, they were speaking about home remedy myths and everyone thought dairy = bad for colds. They didn’t explain why. So I’m asking this to you fellow Dopers to see if you heard about this too, and why I could never have good cereal and milk when I had colds 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Soul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Soul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Soul)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/2 "2008-03-27T18:46:29Z")
[This link](http://www.allergycapital.com.au/Pages/Milk%20Mucus.html) seems to support the “it’s a myth” point of view regarding milk and mucous production. [This link](http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/T032100.asp) seems to say the same thing. A pull quote from the second link: > [@](#): > > Is the warning not to drink milk when you have a cold an old doctor’s tale? Yes and no. Some people do make more mucus when they drink milk, and any high- fat food may produce a sensation of thicker secretions in the back of the throat. Yet, the mucus-producers are probably those that are allergic to milk. Separating out milk-allergic persons, research fails to show any correlation between drinking milk and mucus production during a cold. In conclusion, you need extra fluids during a cold, anyway, so if you’re not allergic it’s okay to drink a few glasses of lowfat milk. ---
**Author:** ![Open\_Your\_Eyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@Open\_Your\_Eyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Open_Your_Eyes)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/3 "2008-03-27T18:52:12Z")
Ah, thanks lots, **Soul**. I wonder how myths like these get so spread around often. ---
**Author:** ![Maastricht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a88e57/32.png) [@Maastricht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maastricht)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/4 "2008-03-27T19:05:15Z")
Just my (and my husband’s) experience, but I didn’t have the milk-mucus thing when I was a kid. I could drink milk without ever getting a slimy throat. That changed in my late twenties. Now most dairy gives me an unpleasant coating of the throat. If I have a cold, I have an irritated throat anyway, and an additional irrating coating of mucus is then something to avoid. Skimmed milk doesn’t pose nearly as much of a problem. I hated skimmed milk as a kid, thought it was a sad substitute for people on a diet. But now it’s the only dairy I like. ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/5 "2008-03-27T19:23:24Z")
I’ve found that the off taste that milk gets when it’s been out of the fridge for a little while is more noticeable when I have a cold. I’m normally more sensitive than I think most people are to this taste (I can’t stand milk that’s been sitting out on the table for more than a couple of minutes), but I get sensitive to it on a molecular level when I have a cold. ---
**Author:** ![telecommunications](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed8c4c/32.png) [@telecommunications](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/telecommunications)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/6 "2008-03-27T20:26:29Z")
I read it usually takes fifteen hours for an allergic reaction to dairy to take place so keep that in mind if you decide to gorge on concentrated dairy products to test its ability for mucous forming. I wouldn’t want you to die from suffocation. [http://suzar.com/DMAF/DMAF-ch5c-p103-106.html](http://suzar.com/DMAF/DMAF-ch5c-p103-106.html) > [@](#): > > Got Milk? Got Mucus! > Milk wins first place as the most mucus-forming of all foods. Drinking a cup of milk is like drinking a cup of mucus. Cheese has this quality 100-fold, being concentrated milk. It takes about 4-5 quarts of milk to make a pound of cheese. People that drink milk and eat dairy products are always full of snot, coughs, colds, congestion. This is why babies fed mostly on cow’s milk have constantly running noses. CASEIN, the dominant protein in milk, is the main cause of mucus. Casein causes histamines in your body which create mucus, congestion. If you must have your cheese fix (you drugfood addict you), cut up a small amount in a big salad. This will counteract some of its clogging effects. And commercial ice cream is totally unfit and unsafe for con-sumption. Whether pasteurized or raw, dairy products from cows’ milk are the most mucus-forming of all foods. This includes milk, cream, cottage cheese, cream cheese, yogurt, ice cream, skim milk, whey, butter, kefir and ghee. Robert Gray observed: "Every one of these is a pernicious mucoidformer. Goats’ milk, how-ever, is substantially less mucoid-forming than cow’s milk."2 ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/7 "2008-03-27T20:51:19Z")
[QUOTE=Open Your Eyes] Ah, thanks lots, **Soul**. I wonder how myths like these get so spread around often. [/QUOTE] Some are endemic in society and are almost impossible to eradicate (“They say…” and “Everyone knows that…”. Some are endemic in families and are almost impossible to eradicate (“My mom told me…”). Many are begun inadvertently in schools. At the risk of starting something dangerous, I’ll list a few common misconceptions that have no significant evidentiary support: - Eating sugar causes people, and children in particular, to be hyperactive - Summer is warmer than winter partly because the earth is positioned slightly closer to the sun in the summer - The blood in our veins is blue; the blood in our arteries is red (remember the diagrams in our science books?) - A bathroom scale would be useless on the moon, since there is no gravity there. - We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. - Reading in dim light will ruin your eyes. - You need 8 glasses of water to stay healthy - shaving your legs causes the hair to grow back faster and coarser - eating turkey makes your drowsy -getting your hair wet and sitting in a draft causes a person to catch a cold ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 9:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/8 "2008-03-27T21:01:44Z")
I just want to say that “Pernicious Mucoidformer” would be a good band name. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/9 "2008-03-27T21:05:08Z")
[QUOTE=Open Your Eyes] Ah, thanks lots, **Soul**. I wonder how myths like these get so spread around often. [/QUOTE] It’s the Florida Citrus Board trying to get you to drink orange juice. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/10 "2008-03-27T21:51:21Z")
[QUOTE=CC] - We breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. [/QUOTE] The presence of this item in your list puzzles me, as in contrast to the others it seems quite obviously true. The more accurate version would be that (setting water vapor to one side) we breathe in a mixture of nitrogen, oxygen, argon, carbon dioxide and other trace gases, and breathe out much the same, with the percentage of oxygen a bit lower and that of carbon dioxide a bit higher. ---
**Author:** ![CC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f1d935/32.png) [@CC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CC)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2008, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/11 "2008-03-27T21:56:45Z")
Yes. The statement as it is, and as it is believed by most people, is so much a partial truth that it doesn’t qualify as truth at all. We breathe in air and we breathe out air. The air we breathe in has a bit less oxygen when we breathe it out, and a bit more carbon dioxide. But it’s air. Most people, when asked, “If it’s true that we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide, why do we give mouth to mouth breathing to someone who’s collapsed?” stare in wonder. ---
**Author:** ![Richard\_Pearse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/richard_pearse/32/13144_2.png) [@Richard\_Pearse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Richard_Pearse)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/12 "2008-03-28T00:14:14Z")
[QUOTE=telecommunications] I read it usually takes fifteen hours for an allergic reaction to dairy to take place so keep that in mind if you decide to gorge on concentrated dairy products to test its ability for mucous forming. I wouldn’t want you to die from suffocation. [http://suzar.com/DMAF/DMAF-ch5c-p103-106.html](http://suzar.com/DMAF/DMAF-ch5c-p103-106.html) [/QUOTE] Er what? Is that link serious? ---
**Author:** ![Open\_Your\_Eyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/e8c25b/32.png) [@Open\_Your\_Eyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Open_Your_Eyes)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/13 "2008-03-28T00:23:53Z")
Lots of replies. Thanks for all the info, although it’s sort of contradictory? Well, not really. I believe **telecommunications** does have the upper hand. Coming from quite an allergic family, my sister has a horrid thing every cold: she gets mass mucus production, to the point where she’ll start suffocating. Sometimes, she has to carry around an inhaler and once, she choked for a few seconds. Guessing none of us should really drink milk with colds after all. Darn, I thought I could start eating cereal with colds again 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/14 "2008-03-28T00:51:10Z")
[QUOTE=1920s Style “Death Ray”] Er what? Is that link serious? [/QUOTE] Actually, it seems to be quite [up and up](http://suzar.com/) for wacko nut jobs ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/15 "2008-03-28T00:54:52Z")
[QUOTE=1920s Style “Death Ray”] Er what? Is that link serious? [/QUOTE] Well, the link may be serious, but it’s factually incredibly erronious and wildly inaccurate. As has been noted in this and other threads already, milk doesn’t thicken mucus. **Open Your Eyes** , skip milk if you want to, when you have a cold. But there’s no credible evidence that it thickens secretions. > [@](#): > > many patients are convinced that milk ingestion induces respiratory “mucus.” However, post-nasal discharge or increased production of mucus are usually not considered as manifestations of true milk allergy (see enclosed abstract of a review of milk allergy). I think that some patients may associate milk ingestion with respiratory mucus mainly because some of the ingested milk adheres to mucus in the post-nasal discharge and a cause and effect association is considered. American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. [http://www.aaaai.org/aadmc/ate/category.asp?cat=1071&s=20&keywords=](http://www.aaaai.org/aadmc/ate/category.asp?cat=1071&s=20&keywords=) ---
**Author:** ![Solfy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Solfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solfy)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/16 "2008-03-28T13:19:43Z")
Tangentially related is the old wives’ tale that you shouldn’t drink milk when you have a fever. I never knew my spouse believed this until a few weeks ago when he wasn’t letting our feverish preschooler have any. Supposedly it will curdle in your stomach due to that extra few degrees F. ---
**Author:** ![VunderBob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/839c29/32.png) [@VunderBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VunderBob)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/17 "2008-03-28T13:48:33Z")
A different angle on why you shouldn’t drink milk if you have a cold: Should you be the type (like me) to drink directly from the jug, you’ll spread it to everyone else in the house… ---
**Author:** ![Anaglyph](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Anaglyph](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaglyph)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/18 "2008-03-28T14:34:55Z")
[QUOTE=Solfy] Tangentially related is the old wives’ tale that you shouldn’t drink milk when you have a fever. I never knew my spouse believed this until a few weeks ago when he wasn’t letting our feverish preschooler have any. Supposedly it will curdle in your stomach due to that extra few degrees F. [/QUOTE] Milk is supposed to curdle in your stomach. The acid in your stomach makes it curdle. In addition, protein-cleaving enzymes produced by the stomach aid this process. The curdling is a sign that the protein chains unfold, which makes them more susceptible to digestion. Rennin, an enzyme from calf stomachs is traditionally used to make the milk curdle in cheese production (nowadays, it may be substituted by similar enzymes produced by microorganisms or recombinant rennin. ---
**Author:** ![Solfy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/848f3c/32.png) [@Solfy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Solfy)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/19 "2008-03-28T14:41:52Z")
[QUOTE=Anaglyph] Milk is supposed to curdle in your stomach. The acid in your stomach makes it curdle. In addition, protein-cleaving enzymes produced by the stomach aid this process. The curdling is a sign that the protein chains unfold, which makes them more susceptible to digestion. Rennin, an enzyme from calf stomachs is traditionally used to make the milk curdle in cheese production (nowadays, it may be substituted by similar enzymes produced by microorganisms or recombinant rennin. [/QUOTE] Oh no! If the fever curdles the milk, you’ll never digest it and it will sit in there for seven years along with that Bubble Yum you swallowed back in 2003. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2008, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952/20 "2008-03-28T16:37:06Z")
If you want to read about the horrors of milk _ad naseum_ click here. I drink milk in my coffee every day of my life and loves me yoghurt, cheese and ice cream, and haven’t been sick in about 10 years. Go figure. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-no-milk-when-you-have-a-cold/442952.md?page=2)