Thousands of years ago, a chance mutation spread in human populations in northwestern Europe that enabled the production of lactase in adulthood. People therefore converted milk to curd, cheese, and other products to reduce the levels of lactose. Initially, the ability to digest milk was limited to children as adults did not produce lactase, an enzyme necessary for digesting the lactose in milk. In many cultures, especially in the West, humans continue to consume milk beyond infancy, using the milk of other mammals (especially cattle, goats and sheep) as a food product. There are two distinct categories of milk consumption: all infant mammals drink milk directly from their mothers’ bodies, and it is their primary source of nutrition and humans obtain milk from other mammals for consumption by humans of all ages, as one component of a varied diet.Ī bowl of milk for the shaman rite Buryatia, Russia In food use, from 1961, the term milk has been defined under Codex Alimentarius standards as: "the normal mammary secretion of milking animals obtained from one or more milkings without either addition to it or extraction from it, intended for consumption as liquid milk or for further processing." The term dairy relates to animal milk and animal milk production. The term milk comes from "Old English meoluc (West Saxon), milc (Anglian), from Proto-Germanic * meluks "milk" (source also of Old Norse mjolk, Old Frisian melok, Old Saxon miluk, Dutch melk, Old High German miluh, German Milch, Gothic miluks)".
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |