Last updated on: 12/8/2022 | Author: ProCon.org

Did You Know?

1. In 2003, over 51% of North Americans with non-European ancestry were lactose intolerant. For East Asians the level of lactose intolerance was 90-100%.
2. One taco has more calcium than one cup of low fat milk, according to a 2005 United States Department of Agriculture report, although milk has twice the calcium of a cheeseburger.
3. People around the world consume the milk of goats, water buffalo, llamas, reindeer, horses, sheep, camels, and yaks.
4. The Old Testament of the Bible makes about fifty references to milk and milk products and refers to the holy land as a " land which floweth with milk and honey."
5. In a 1939 strike by the Dairy Farmers Union, milk farmers engaged in militant tactics such as blocking roads, confiscating and spilling out milk, physically fighting strike breakers, and setting fire to trucks that tried to cross road blockades.
Click for an Encyclopaedia Britannica video about how ice cream is made.
6. In 1996, the California Milk Processors Board and Mattel came out with a limited edition "got milk?" Barbie doll to advertise milk.
7. On Aug. 3, 2011, a Venice, CA health food store was raided by police for selling raw milk. The owner and two others were arrested and charged with multiple felonies.
8. The earliest evidence of milk consumption dates to ​​the seventh millennium (7000 to 6001 BCE) in what is now Turkey. Milk residue found in pottery points to milk consumption in eastern Europe as early as the sixth millennium (6000 to 5001 BCE) and in Britain as early as the fourth millennium (4000 to 3001 BCE).

9. Milk purchased in American stores is normally both pasteurized and homogenized.
10. Production of almond milk was recorded in the Middle East in the 13th century and soy milk in China in 1365.
Click for an Encyclopaedia Britannica video about the chemistry of making cheese.
11. Many large dairy farms utilize growth hormones and antibiotics during the rearing process to artificially increase a cow’s milk production and to decrease the spread of infectious diseases among their cows.
12. In 2019, there were in the United States. Each cow produced an average of 23,391 pounds of milk.
13. Most dairies have enough machines to milk more than 20 cows at one time. Milking machines by creating a pulsating vacuum around the teat, which causes the milk to be released from the udder.
14. Due to school and restaurant closures during the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic, demand for milk dropped sharply. Low demand, combined with processing bottlenecks and grocery store ordering caps, forced milk farmers to dump milk before it was delivered to processors.