With a third of the world’s cattle and a population divided between a lactose-tolerant north and west and a largely lactose-intolerant south and east, milk-related misinformation is all over. Further, a rich tradition of dairy that goes back thousands of years was yanked into the modern world thanks to Dr Varghese Kurian’s White Revolution, which took a nutritious but highly perishable product in a country with huge amounts of poverty & malnutrition and managed to make safe milk near universally available to anyone, even those living in cities, even during the pre-home-fridge era. This is a jaw-dropping achievement that should get as much accolade as UPI or any other digital infrastructure that we are all proud of.
But thanks to social media, the proud defenders of ancient tradition have managed to somehow turn this stellar achievement into a quagmire of pseudoscience and misinformation. In this video, I break down the basic science of milk, how it is produced and processed, and also debunk the most common myths about milk.
Chapters
00:00 - The only foods that do not involve death
01:06 - Introduction to Milk
02:26 - Why do we mostly drink cow or buffalo milk?
04:16 - What is milk made of?
05:15 - Milk Production in India
06:36 - Milk Pasteurisation
08:10 - Milk Standarisation
09:16 - Milk Homogenisation
10:15 - UHT (Ultra High Temperature) Milk
11:13 - Lactose Intolerance in India
12:37 - Myth: A2 milk superior to A1 milk
14:09 - Myth: Growth Hormones in Milk are causing early puberty in girls
15:12 - Myth: You must not mix milk and meat
15:41 - The Milky Way