Adult Animals Drink Milk

And why shouldn’t they?

I suppose we’ve all heard the supposed dictum that adult humans shouldn’t drink milk, that doing so is unnatural and bad for us, and we’re the only animals that drink milk past childhood.

Let’s start with the last part.

I read of a hunter who saw an adult male polar bear kill a lactating female polar bear, tear open her teats, and drink the milk. There’s no need to go to the far north and hunters’ tales for examples of adult animals drinking milk. Anyone who has owned dogs or cats knows how eagerly they lap the stuff up if they’re given the chance.

Ah, but adult dogs and cats don’t drink milk in the wild, do they? Putting aside the fact that dogs and cats aren’t wild animals but creatures bred by us for thousands or tens of thousands or years, and that we don’t know for sure that adult feral dogs and cats don’t drink milk, let’s ask why adult wild animals, as a general rule, don’t seem to drink milk.

The answer, of course, is that milk isn’t available in the wild except when it comes from a nursing mother. We humans have an immense production and distribution chain to procure milk, process it to make it safe to drink, transport it, store it, and sell it to us. In our homes, we have refrigeration so that we can store milk safely. When it comes to milk, all of this is what really separates us from adult wild animals, not some divine edict or mystical rule of nature.

As far as we can tell, wild animals also don’t have refrigeration or cook their food. (I think I’ve read of a few remarkable exceptions to that statement, but it’s still true for all but those few exceptions.) If we should not drink milk as adults because adult wild animals don’t drink milk, then we should also not refrigerate or cook our food. We should not live in houses or wear clothing. Goodbye to eyeglasses, hearing aids, telephones, and so on. But of course we don’t want to return to the life lived by our very ancient ancestors. The story of civilization is one of constantly inventing new ways to further distance ourselves from the natural state, that state in which life, as Thomas Hobbes said, is “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

Think of that polar bear. Isn’t it better to get your milk from the fridge?

Let’s return to the first part of the original assertion, that drinking milk is harmful to adults. As far as I can tell from a bit of Googling, this is either completely true or utterly false. The “false” position highlights all the healthful nutrients milk contains. The “true” position counters that the same nutrients can be obtained elsewhere and milk also contains lots of saturated fat, which is known to be bad for us.

One doesn’t have to drink whole milk, though. My wife and I switched to 2% milk years ago, and when we were used to that, we took the next step and switched to 1% milk. It tastes fine in tea, coffee, and cereal. (Perhaps we’ll manage to go all the way and switch to skimmed milk, but I doubt it.)

If you think that saturated fat is sufficient reason to avoid milk entirely, then I assume you also don’t eat butter or eat cheese. You should also reject meat, especially red meat. Avoid alcohol and tobacco, limit ingestion of fried foods and snack foods, get sufficient sleep, don’t sit for too long, exercise regularly, avoid stress and pollution, drink plenty of water and never soft drinks, and never eat processed meats. And all of the other rules that most of us know quite well and try to observe, sort of, for the most part, but with occasional lapses. (We have good intentions.)

If you’re one of the rare few who actually do follow all of those rules strictly and always, congratulations. I admire you. I’ll never be you. You’re doing everything you should do at the 100% level, whereas I’m at the… I don’t know. Better than 50%, I’m sure. Perhaps I can even say 75-80%, at least on a good day. I don’t think that eliminating the moderate amount of 1% milk I drink in tea and coffee would raise my good-health-habits percentage significantly. I’m quite sure it would eliminate the pleasure I derive from those beverages.

Few of us will ever attain perfection in anything, and that’s especially true of the healthiness of our lifestyles. Perhaps it’s wiser to establish moderate habits and to aim for a high but reasonable level of healthiness. Make small improvements as you’re able to.

Don’t beat yourself up about it. Sip a bit of milk. I hear it’s calming and helps fight stress.