Most of the world's population can't digest milk!?

[aneeshm]

I can enjoy all milk products - but I cannot digest actual milk .

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by General Ludd
If you've been drinking soy milk that has texture, someone's been having fun with you.

It was a big brand soy milk, and you can definately notice a more 'grainy' texture to it as opposed to regular milk.

[Winston]

I have no problem with milk either.

But I don't understand the term "unable to digest". If you can't digest it, what exactly happens?

And I thought lactose intolerance was a violently allergic condition. Is there any relation between this and the purported "inability to digest" milk?

[loinburger]

I go through two or three gallons of milk a week.

[lord of the mark]

I can drink milk, QOTM can not. She sometimes has problems with Ice cream as well.

[Son of David]

Is this more evidence of white supremacy?

[Bill3000]

But I don't understand the term "unable to digest". If you can't digest it, what exactly happens?

And I thought lactose intolerance was a violently allergic condition. Is there any relation between this and the purported "inability to digest" milk?

No, they are completely different. It means that you cannot digest the sugar lactose in milk, rather than being allergic to it or other parts of dairy. From Wikipedia:

Without lactase, the lactose in milk remains uncleaved and unabsorbed. Lactose cannot pass easily through the intestinal wall into the bloodstream, so it remains in the intestines. Soon, gut bacteria adapt to the relative abundance of lactose (relative to other sugars like glucose) and switch over to metabolizing lactose. Along the way they produce copious amounts of gas by fermentation.

The gas causes a range of unpleasant abdominal symptoms, including stomach cramps, bloating, flatulence and diarrhoea. Like other unabsorbed sugars, e.g. mannitol, the lactose raises the osmotic pressure of the colon contents, preventing the colon from resorbing water and hence causing a laxative effect to add to the excessive gas production.

[Son of David]

Oh man, that's why I keep getting cramps and keep farting - I drink about 4 or 5 milky hot chocolates a day.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Winston
I have no problem with milk either.

But I don't understand the term "unable to digest". If you can't digest it, what exactly happens?

They don't have the enzime to brake down lactose sugar so the sugar goes into their intestines where it is attacked by bacteria causing bloating, gas, and crapping. If you're family comes from northern Europe (or other areas with a history of food shortages and/or extensive dairy herding) then you likely won't have a problem. If your family came from an area which historically didn't eat lots of dairy then probably don't have the enzime and you will have problems.

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Son of David
Is this more evidence of white supremacy?

As I said earlier most bantu people (the single largest group in Africa) can also eat dairy without problems. Herding was a very big deal there and they historically had famine every time there was a drought thus giving milk drinkers an evolutionary advantage. I.E. the other people starved while the milk drinkers lived.

[Son of David]

Oerdin, you have a seriously disturbing avatar.

[Odin]

Originally posted by Son of David
Is this more evidence of white supremacy?

Mongol and Turkic people can digest milk too, and so can some cattle-herding societies in Africa.

[Last Conformist]

Originally posted by VetLegion
No, it's calling things as they are.

And calling people who can't digest lactose "lactose intolerant" isn't?

Calling something an "intolerance" isn't a normative statement, so go stick your PC-afflicted head up some suitable orifice.

Lactose intolerance is normal and only mutants can digest milk in adulthood.

Everyone's a mutant in the sense of having a collection of unusual alleles. In fact, DNA replication is sloppy enough that just about every gamete comes with a few novel mutations.


Incidentally, Kuci (and Ludd) is being stupid when he says there's no one baseline with which to measure normality for all humanity. Baselines aren't Grog-given entities that exist or not; they're conceptual aids we create and employ as we see fit. If we're looking at the human species as a whole, lactase persistence is not the normal condition, if we're looking at, say, the Swedish population, it is. Both are perfectly valid statements.

Furthermore, I'd like to point out that despite what the Floridian commie claims, Finnish isn't a Ugric language, and the Finns therefore can't sensibly be termed an "Ugric" people. Furthermore, since the Finno-Ugric languages are today restricted to Europe and western Siberia (recent emigration to places like America excluded), and that they've been in that region for as long as we've got any historical records, I'd be delighted to see any substantiation of his implied claim of "Asian" ancestry.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by Odin
MilK:

The Proto-Indo-European speaking pastorialists bringing the allele to the rest of Europe:

Middle easterners bringing agriculture to europe

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
It was a big brand soy milk, and you can definately notice a more 'grainy' texture to it as opposed to regular milk.

It's not much different from skim milk. Full milk is probably "smoother" due to the extra fat.