Milk is back!

All over the world, nutritionists and food companies are coming to a conclusion that you and I might find a little surprising: milk is great!

Milk sales are up and those of its imitators or substitutes are either stagnant or falling.

 

The reason that we, in India, might find this surprising is because we already knew this. We have never fallen out of love with milk. We still associate it with good health, nutrition and of course versatility.

 

   Without milk there would be no dahi and that would cause a crisis in much of South India. And there would also be no lassi which would disappoint Punjabis almost as much as the non-availability of paneer. As for Bengal, its greatest contribution to the national food scene, Mishti, would vanish because most Bengali sweets are based on milk.

 

   But despite milk’s important role in the Indian diet, it has gone through a bad phase in the West and more specifically in America. More than a decade ago, the US government’s nutritional advice gave milk a bad rap. You could drink it only in small quantities, the government suggested, because dairy fat was bad for you and raised your cholesterol levels.

 

   This led to the growth of a low-fat milk sector and hit sales of butter. There was also a growing focus on lactose intolerance. Not only did sales of milk collapse in America as a consequence but a huge number of so-called milk substitutes hit the market: soya milk, oat milk, almond milk, etc.

 

   That phase has finally ended. All that stuff about dietary cholesterol being transferred directly into your veins has been dialled down. So has the demonisation of all fats. The new villains are carbohydrates. Americans who were planning to enjoy a glass of milk with cookies (a peculiarly American combination) have now been told to throw away the cookies but to drink the milk.

 

   Milk has gained from the new scientific consensus that we should cut down on machine-made foods Most non-dairy ‘milk’ is created through industrial processes which leads them to be classified as ultra processed foods (UPFs). Each month the campaign against UPFs and other industrial food gathers momentum. If it keeps up at this pace then, by the end of this decade, UPFs will be subject to the same controls as cigarettes. And that spells doom for soya milk and the rest.

 

   A few years from now if you go to an American coffee shop and ask for a latte, you won’t have to specify that you want real milk, not soya milk or oat milk or whatever. Because milk is back.

 

   In fact, the pendulum has swung the other way. Robert F Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s health secretary-designate, famous as the man who opposes vaccines (or not, he sang a different tune at his congressional confirmation hearings) wants people to drink raw milk, that is, milk that has not been pasteurised.

 

   This used to be a fringe idea, advocated by the sort of Americans who also believe that the Earth is flat and that vaccines contain tiny little squid that enter your bloodstream and turn you into a zombie. But Kennedy and his supporters have embraced it treating raw milk as a symbol of naturalness and freedom from government regulation.

 

   It is an idea that alarms public health experts and scientists because raw milk, even milk that is freshly squeezed from a cow, can contain harmful viruses and bacteria. But Kennedy’s supporters take the line that anything that is natural and comes directly from God (via a cow) cannot possibly be harmful. Milk is great, they say. It must be drunk raw and its virtues celebrated.

 

"If milk contains germs then it makes sense to boil it or to pasteurise it. That’s what Indians have always done."

   There is a certain kind of Indian politician who loves milking a cow for the cameras and then drinks the milk as a photo-opp. But even the Lalu Prasads of our world do not oppose pasteurisation or sterilisation. They know it can be dangerous to drink raw milk regularly. In America, on the other hand, Kennedy may have his way and raw milk may soon be widely available.

 

   Another reason that milk has made a comeback is that the lactose-intolerance orthodoxy, which had prevailed for decades, is now in trouble. Scientists have told us that most humans lose the ability to digest milk after puberty. They become lactose intolerant and when they drink milk it can lead to many worrying symptoms: indigestion, intestinal pain, gas, stomach bloating, fatigue, brain fog etc.

 

   Further, say scientists, much of the world, east of South Asia, comprises countries whose citizens cannot digest milk. Why, for instance, is there no dairy tradition in China? Why does milk play such a small part in the diets of the Chinese and the Japanese?

 

   It is because of lactose intolerance.

 

   The problem with this view is that each year, the evidence for it becomes scantier and scantier. Over the last two decades or so, the people of east Asia have begun to consume lots of milk and milk products with no obvious detrimental health effects. While America has seen a 37% drop in milk consumption since 1970, the Chinese have been steadily drinking more and more milk. Today between 40% to 50% of all Chinese people drink milk. You could argue that the other 50-60% are lactose intolerant. But the fact that milk consumption is growing suggests that this may be too hasty a conclusion.

 

   It is hard for scientists to explain this phenomenon because the medical wisdom is that if your body does not produce lactase, the enzyme that you need to digest milk, you can never safely consume milk. Nor is this a reversible condition. You cannot slowly introduce dairy products into your diet and thus stimulate lactase production.

 

   So how come the Chinese have suddenly started drinking so much milk?

 

   Scientists have now come up with a new explanation. They say that while the human body cannot teach itself to digest milk if it does not have (or has lost) that ability to produce lactase, it is possible that over generations the biological profile of a nation might change so that younger people can produce lactase and digest milk. Perhaps children born in the decades ahead will be even more equipped to digest milk.

 

   Yeah. Perhaps.

 

   It is very hard for lay people to understand quite what is happening because we rely on scientists and they don’t seem to be able to adequately explain why the global consensus on lactose intolerance may have depended on overstating its existence. But equally, you don’t have to be a medical genius to figure out that RFK Jr is wrong. If milk contains germs then it makes sense to boil it or to pasteurise it. That’s what Indians have always done.

 

   And perhaps the Indian experience could be the model for the world to follow. We are not like the French who don’t drink milk but nevertheless cannot conceive of a meal without some milk product: cream, butter, or cheese. Indians do actually like milk. Till the middle of the 20th century, for example, we did not drink much tea. And when the Tea Board persuaded us to consume its products, it did so by encouraging us to drink tea with lots of milk. Cooked Chai or Masala Chai, are both, effectively, variations on hot flavoured milk.

 

   So, it’s best to follow a middle path that suits your own body. Take my own example. Not only do I not like the taste of milk, it also causes me abdominal discomfort. But I love ice cream and even though it does involve a certain amount of suffering, I do not mind the occasional bout of discomfort in the pursuit of good food. And because Indian cuisine does not necessarily depend, like French, on dairy products, I have no difficulty eating pretty much what I want. (Like many people who have a problem with milk, I find that dahi does not cause discomfort.)

 

   Far better, I think, to follow a sensible middle path than to lurch, as America has, from one extreme to another; from the demonisation of milk to RFK Jr’s obsession with drinking it raw.