• Question: Milk! What Is It?

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      Asked by Gav to Andrew, Dilip, Emma, John, Ruth on 16 Nov 2015.
      • Photo: Andrew Quigley

        Andrew Quigley answered on 16 Nov 2015:

        Milk is a mixture of lots of different things: fats, protein, both fat soluble and water soluble vitamins, carbohydrates, and some salts and minerals.

        Milk is produced by all mammals to help feed their young before they’re able to eat solid food. Infants also get their mothers antibodies by drinking milk that they produce. The antibodies the young animals (and humans) get from breast milk can help them fight virus and other infections.

      • Photo: John Gleeson

        John Gleeson answered on 16 Nov 2015:

        It is the drink I add to tea… Kidding (but it’s true).

        Andrew covered this. But I’d like to sell the benefits of milk. Milk got a bad reputation for a while because people were concerned about the fat content. In moderation it’s fine, it’s full of lots of protein and minerals and fortified milks have added vitamins too. #teammilk

      • Photo: Ruth Hamill

        Ruth Hamill answered on 17 Nov 2015:

        They call milk natures perfect food… Since the earliest days of agriculture milk has become a very important foodstuff especially for European populations. Milk evolved to feed infants, and we rely on various enzymes to digest milk. However, adults were not always adapted to be able to drink milk past childhood. Scientists have shown that a mutation in a gene for a protein called lactase arose which allows us to digest lactose in milk as adults. We all produced lactase as infants but it disappeared in adults. In the mutated form of the gene lactase, the ability to digest milk persists into adulthood, making milk accessible with all the benefits that that entails. This mutation arose about 7500 years ago in Hungary and has been powerfully selected for in European populations with the spread of dairying and the health advantages of being able to drink fresh milk. Nowadays, worldwide only 30% of adults can digest milk, the other 70% are lactose intolerant. In northern Europe, however more than 90% of adults can digest milk, that’s one of the most powerful examples of natural selection in the human population.

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