The truth about milk
June 21, 2004 in Science & Technology
From a few days ago, Slate on the decline in milk's popularity, Milk: How a wholesome drink became a villain. There are some interesting facts in there about how Americans began drinking milk so much in the first place.
Milk reform began as soon as milk drinking became an entrenched American habit -- during the mid-1800s, as Americans moved to cities. But the early reformers wanted Americans to drink more milk, not less...the early reformers blamed rising infant mortality on city life: The new cities, they argued, caused women to become morally degenerate and physically weak, and they transmitted those ailments to the infants they breast-fed. The solution: Feed babies cleaner, purer cow's milk.
A perfect solution, if I may say so. Everyone knows that cows are the most morally upright citizens in the barnyard! The other sins against milk, according to Slate: its high cost, its racist inability to be digested by peoples other than Northern Europeans and Saharan nomads, and its agribusiness, Frankenfood tendency to get all drugged up with hormones.
While I don't agree with all the arguments against milk, I will admit to being a soy milk drinking since 1998. And I'm happy to report that soy milk is gaining in popularity. Once an obscure beverage relegated to a back aisle in a San Francisco health food store, I can find it right next to milk in the dairy section at nearly every supermarket I shop. Yay yummy delicious soy!
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