There's evidence my ancestors have been drinking milk for at least 10,000 years. It's field tested.

> There's evidence my ancestors have been drinking milk for at least 10,000 years

Most humans can't digest lactose after infancy [1].

For those who can, we have limited research around the quantity in and frequency with which their ancestors consumed whole milk. Comparisons to modern milk, produced by stressed-out cows bred for volume and fed god-knows-what, are tenuous.

[1] https://ghr.nlm.nih.gov/condition/lactose-intolerance

Some people die from being near peanut dust. That doesn't mean nuts are unhealthy to those who can eat them.

Even those who are included in "lactose intolerant" populations actually have no trouble chugging a huge glass of milk everyday along with some cheese and yogurt. Intolerance charts like you'd find on Wikipedia would lead you to suggest east Asians can't consume milk at all without discomfort, yet yogurt for breakfast, milk during lunch, a milk tea before dinner and ice cream after isn't even the slightest bit uncommon and causes no trouble for most people.

That some people can consume liters a day (or gallons, for those trying to gain muscle fast) seems to indicate that some people evolved to be fine with dairy.

  Most humans can't digest lactose after infancy [1].

That source: "Approximately 65 percent of the human population has a reduced ability to digest lactose after infancy."

"Reduced ability" != "Can't"

Nutritional science has gotten a lot of things badly wrong, so it plays second fiddle to how I feel when I add or remove something from my diet. I've tried on a few occasions to cut dairy from my diet. It was sub-optimal.

>Most humans can't digest lactose after infancy [1].

Here (Europe) most can. So it's normal to digest lactose here. In other words, yes percentage wise you are correct. But is's not equally distributed.

Dairy is the most common food allergy.

I wonder how skewed this number is in the US due to doctor's notes for (un-needed) school lunch exemptions, assuming the note got charted (which is basically mandatory with electronic records). Even when I was in school, (before allergies were cool) a large number of kids faked it for access to the alternative menu, or to be allowed to bring their own lunch and snacks. I suspect it's only gotten worse.

In the overall US population peanut appears to be the most common, 58% more prevalent. In children, milk is far and away more common, 220% more prevalent, but many milk allergic children outgrow the allergy.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4254585/

There's evidence my ancestors have not. sigh.

And also lots of evidence for the contrary.

The contrary would be: "Milk is better for you than the dairy industry advertises".

So show a dairy industry advertisement, and show that milk is actually better than THAT. :)

> " There's lots of evidence milk isn't as good for you as the dairy industry advertises."

lol at this ridiculous comment. Present the evidence please.

How many millions of years do you think mammals have been drinking milk for?

You're right that they should present the evidence, but "How many millions of years" isn't an especially convincing counterargument either. For most of those millions of years, mammals have been drinking strictly the milk from their species only during their infancy.

About 1/3rd of adult humans have genetic mutations to make drinking milk safe. (by coincidence most of those adults speak English). Because of that adaptation the other species argument is invalid.

_Adult_ mammals drinking the milk of other species is a _very_ new invention; lots of humans don't even do it.

How many millions of years do you think _adult_ mammals have been drinking milk _coming from other mammals_ for?

dairy consumption is very strongly linked to prostate cancer: Dr. Miller gave a huge talk about this. You can find it on Youtube. Also, there's the China study, one of the largest ever studies in china showing that dairy and meat consumption are strongly linked to cancers and diseases even within a genetically homogenous population. some portions of the population had cancer rates of 400 times higher than other areas: guess what they ate? dairy/meat. they looked at over 30 factors and found the biggest factors were what people ate. there's numerous other studies as well.

drinking your own species milk is very different from drinking another mammals milk. humans didn't start drinking /eating dairy until very recently in the last couple 100K years.

> "dairy consumption is very strongly linked to prostate cancer: Dr. Miller gave a huge talk about this. You can find it on Youtube."

Who is Dr Miller. Does he present his research in medical journals, or just on YouTube? Got a link to a research paper? "Look it up on YouTube" isn't a valid response when someone asks for proof of something...

> " Also, there's the China study..."

China's a big place. Lots of studies going on, I'd imagine. Again - got a link to a research paper?

How about this: https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-canc...

"Milk and dairy are good sources of calcium and protein which are needed as part of a healthy, balanced diet. Calcium is important for teeth and bone health.

Studies looking into the link between cancer and dairy products have not given clear results. There is evidence that dairy products could reduce the risk of bowel cancer, but we cannot say for sure that this is the case. There is no strong evidence linking dairy products to any other types of cancer. We need further research to find out more about the links between dairy products and cancer risk."

Most of the calcium you get from milk just ends up getting pissed out. they've measured this many times and found that the body doesn't even absorb most of the calcium from the milk. You can get calcium from many many many sources: nearly all the fruits and vegetables have it in abundance.

This will shock you, but It's a fact that no animal produces it's own protein. Protein gets produced in Plants, that's where it comes from. Animals get their protein from plants. If you get it from a cow through milk or eating the cow meat, your just eating 2nd hand protein. Look at all the strongest and biggest animals in the world: Apes, Gorillas, Cows, Elephants, Rhinos they all eat plants and get nearly all their protein from plants.

Milk is actually terrible for your bones. There are many studies showing that it is linked to increased bone fractures in elderly people and also linked to increased cardiovascular risk.

I know this all sounds shocking, but if you want to know the truth, you should watch "Forks over knives" or watch "What the health". both can be found on netflix.

As for "the china study" it's not some small study: "The study they created included 367 variables, 65 counties in China, and 6,500 adults (who completed questionnaires, blood tests, etc.). “When we were done, we had more than 8,000 statistically significant associations between lifestyle, diet, and disease variables.”"

Their mother's milk, during infancy. No mammals other than humans drink milk after infancy, and humans have only been doing that for a few thousand years. I'm sure there's links to evidence I can find but I'm not going to waste my time as it's common sense.

If its healthy during infancy why would it be unhealthy during adulthood?

Because the average adult doesn't need such a high concentration of fat and calories in a single drink / bowl of cereal / piece of cheese etc. If it was healthy and natural you'd be drinking your mother's milk as an adult, but I'm sure you aren't.

>Because the average adult doesn’t need ...

This doesn’t mean consuming a moderate amount of milk is somehow unhealthy.

Because for species other than humans the ability to digest milk is lost when they become an adult. This genetic adaptation changing everything.

Where did you get that idea? Milk is one of the 2-3 most nutritious foods on Earth. In fact, milk has been designed by evolution over millions of years to be precisely what a mammal needs to thrive.

> designed by evolution over millions of years to be precisely what a mammal needs to thrive

Infant mammals. Adults consuming the milk of another species is recent. (About 10,000 years in humans.)

We have mixed evidence for the benefits of milk. It was a rich source of calories when those were scarce. Today, it might promote obesity. And good advice for some is bad advice for others. For example, milk boosts iron at the expense of vitamin D; that makes it favorable for light-skinned people at high latitudes [1].

Milk's branding as a superfood essential for kids is a product of post-war propaganda [2]. (TL; DR The U.S. government boosted dairy demand to feed soldiers. After the war, that production was threatened. So civilian demand was boosted.)

[1] https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/131/1/e144

[2] https://dairymarkets.org/pubPod/pubs/EB9505.pdf

  production was threatened. So civilian demand was boosted.

That makes no sense. When production is "threatened", artificially boosting demand would be the exactly wrong thing to do.

> When production is "threatened", artificially boosting demand would be the exactly wrong thing to do

There was wartime demand. Dairy farmers invested to meet it. War ends. Demand goes down. That capital must now be written off, re-purposed, or the demand re-started. We chose the last option.

Production as in productive capital or productive potential.

Some humans have the necessary genes to digest milk, some do not. Can't lump all mammals together.

> Milk contains a type of sugar called lactose, which is distinct from the sugars found in fruit and other sweet foods. When we are babies, our bodies make a special enzyme called lactase that allows us to digest the lactose in our mother’s milk. But after we are weaned in early childhood, for many people this stops. Without lactase, we cannot properly digest the lactose in milk. As a result, if an adult drinks a lot of milk they may experience flatulence, painful cramps and even diarrhoea. (It’s worth noting that in other mammals, there aren’t any lactase-persistent adults – adult cows don’t have active lactase, and neither do cats or dogs, for example).

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190218-when-did-humans-...

> "Some humans have the necessary genes to digest milk, some do not. Can't lump all mammals together."

Note, adult mammals. Drinking milk as a baby is literally the definition of mammal. Even the platypus, which lays eggs and lacks teats, counts as mammal because they still produce milk to feed their children.

Then how do cats digest it?

Poorly.

Adult cats are generally lactose intolerant[0].

0: https://www.prestigeanimalhospital.com/services/cats/blog/wh...

Cats drinking bowls of milk is a TV thing or people who don't know better. Almost all mammals, including humans, lose the ability to effectively process lactose at some point in their life. Keeping the ability to process lactose as an adult is somewhat unique to humans and even then most will stop producing lactase before they die.

Is there a test to determine if you do make lactase?

Rapidly after drinking a glass of milk (or any of the many, many things that include lactose) it becomes very very clear that I am lactose intolerant to both myself and everyone around me.