I love most things dairy – however it does not love me. After a childhood of drinking my Milk – It Does A Body Good – as an adult I have become lactose intolerant. I was so happy to read this book and find out that I am not the minority – but the majority, our bodies were not made to drink milk from other animals. 60% of the world’s population is lactose intolerant.

This book was incredibly researched and easy to read. It was filled with interesting facts and my poor husband heard a lot of them over the past weekend. Like did you know Almond Milk is not something new! It has been around forever. Also, some countries mix milk with beer? The author includes many recipes that were just as interesting to read as the narration – My favorite was a cheese one that started with – Fresh milk from 12 cows! I now thoroughly understand pasteurization as well as the movement for raw milk. And, I will never look at butter the same way again.

This author has other books like Salt and also Cod – which are now on my reading wish list.

This is a great read and will be available as of May 8.

SUMMARY

According to the Greek creation myth, we are so much spilt milk; a splatter of the goddess Hera’s breast milk became our galaxy, the Milky Way. But while mother’s milk may be the essence of nourishment, it is the milk of other mammals that humans have cultivated ever since the domestication of animals more than 10,000 years ago, originally as a source of cheese, yogurt, kefir, and all manner of edible innovations that rendered lactose digestible, and then, when genetic mutation made some of us lactose-tolerant, milk itself.

Before the industrial revolution, it was common for families to keep dairy cows and produce their own milk. But during the nineteenth century mass production and urbanization made milk safety a leading issue of the day, with milk-borne illnesses a common cause of death. Pasteurization slowly became a legislative matter. And today milk is a test case in the most pressing issues in food politics, from industrial farming and animal rights to GMOs, the locavore movement, and advocates for raw milk, who controversially reject pasteurization.

Profoundly intertwined with human civilization, milk has a compelling and a surprisingly global story to tell, and historian Mark Kurlansky is the perfect person to tell it. Tracing the liquid’s diverse history from antiquity to the present, he details its curious and crucial role in cultural evolution, religion, nutrition, politics, and economics.

Click Here to Buy Milk!: A 10,000-Year Food Fracas on Amazon