What makes milk from a cow preferable to milk from other domesticated animals (horse, dog, pig, etc.)?
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ANSWERS: 4
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Trying to milk any Udder animal would be difficult, it can be done, but would be a lot more complicated and difficult, than a cow or goat.
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bostjan the adequate 🥉 I can't imagine any pre-agricultural person looking at a wild aurochs (wild precursor to the domestic cow) and thinking, "if I could only capture that thing, breed it around my children and grandchildren until it no longer has any urge to gore them or stomp on them, then my descendants could enjoy the delicious fruit of its udders." -
Creamcrackered Well that applies to a lot of animals including wolves, we domesticated lots of wild animals, I don't know who thought it was a good idea to plough the land, because once you start to plant and domesticate crops, people can take ownership of that crop, and so the power to feed or starve you. Ironically, in domesticating our environment we domesticated, and enslaved ourselves. -
Creamcrackered I watched a programme, where a tribe kept goats, and drank their blood for nutrition, they don't kill the goats, they live off the blood.
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bostjan the adequate 🥉 Interesting. Blood contains a lot of nutrients, but it tends to also carry a lot of diseases. I just read an article a week or two ago about vampire birds in Africa. These birds started out picking ticks off of larger mammals, then gradually started preferring the blood-engorged ticks over the dry ones, then just started biting the animals in order to drink their blood. The biologists who studied them said that they developed tolerance to the diseases carried in the blood by this sort of step-by-step exposure.
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Creamcrackered That's both gross and interesting. Mice and rats are becoming immune to poison, but if they are captured by another animal and it eats the rat, the animal is susceptible to haemorrhage, as that's what rat poison does, stops the blood from clotting. Adaption is amazing.
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Mongols drink mares milk, some European cheeses are made from sheeps milk. I have heard that Laplanders and Saami milk their reindeer, buffalo mozzerlla is made from water buffalo milk. I think cows milk and to a lesser degree, goats milk is just an American preference. 12/11/23
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bostjan the adequate 🥉
Bedouins drink camel's milk. As far as I am aware, no cultures bother milking pigs. Why? Does it taste bad? Unclean? Cultural faux pas? Do humans lack the enzymes to digest it? Too difficult to obtain? -
dalcocono
I had forgotten about the Bedouins, and their camels, and never considered pigs milk. A big old sow with 12 or 14 nipples might be hard to milk.
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Taste. Try goat's milk and see. * It might be an acquired taste...but I've acquired it, and that's the way it goes.
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bostjan the adequate 🥉
I've tried a taste of different kinds before. Goat is not the greatest milk of all time by my reckoning, but many others are fairly mild. I'm not really sure why goat milk is as popular as it is, given how reportedly unhappy goats are about being milked.
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I don't know I prefer and drink plant based milk.
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bostjan the adequate 🥉
Which plant makes the best milk? -
mugwort
Its a matter of what tastes best to you. -
bostjan the adequate 🥉
Which tastes best to you, though? I've only tried maybe ummm 4. Let's see soy milk is okay at best. Almond milk tastes good to me. Hemp milk has a nuttier thicker taste, which is satisfying, but sometimes it tastes a little bit "gamey" (not sure if that's at all the correct word). Cashew milk tastes a little off to me, but I can't explain exactly why. I don't think I've tried other plant milks, but maybe I just forgot. If I get a drink at a cafe or whatever, I tend to just get it without milk. For cooking, I'm not sure it matters much with how subtle the differences are, so I'll use whichever. -
mugwort
I only tried soy and almond. Its been some time since drinking soy so don't recall the taste. I am quite satisfied with almond milk.
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