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Lactose Intolerant
Aug. 16th, 2008 02:10 pmLanguage is a tricky and subtle thing. Except for a few people who are genetically unable to ever produce the appropriate enzyme, no-one is lactose intolerant. It's just that some people are able to more easily produce the enzyme throughout life, instead of stopping completely once weaned. Adults who cannot digest milk are actually in the majority, worldwide.
Drinking milk after childhood is a very recent thing, in evolutionary terms. It probably goes back no more than nine thousand years. That some groups of people have already evolved to more readily produce lactase as adults is remarkable.
In most populations of humans the enzyme production stops once the drinking of milk stops. There's simply no reason - among them - for it to be produced after weaning. Some people in most populations can continue production after childhood if they never stop drinking milk; a few more can restart production if they resume drinking milk. Naturally, those populations with the highest percentages of such people are the populations with a long tradition of drinking milk after childhood.
I read, several years ago, that European relief agencies were shocked to find that the powdered milk they sent to some areas was simply going to waste. Since only the children among those populations could digest lactose, there was a huge surplus. Sometimes the adults were actually using the powdered milk as a whitewash. Not because they didn't know what it was, but just to get _some_ use out of it. (Many animal proteins are used as binding agents in traditional recipes for paint and such.)
This was part of what led to a major reform of relief efforts a couple of decades back. Modern emergency rations are prepared with an awareness of both cultural and biological variation, as well as such things as food allergies.
So those of you living in North America, Europe and a few other places where milk-drinking by adults is a long and honorable tradition but who can't participate, don't despair. You're actually part of a majority which outnumber those who do.
Drinking milk after childhood is a very recent thing, in evolutionary terms. It probably goes back no more than nine thousand years. That some groups of people have already evolved to more readily produce lactase as adults is remarkable.
In most populations of humans the enzyme production stops once the drinking of milk stops. There's simply no reason - among them - for it to be produced after weaning. Some people in most populations can continue production after childhood if they never stop drinking milk; a few more can restart production if they resume drinking milk. Naturally, those populations with the highest percentages of such people are the populations with a long tradition of drinking milk after childhood.
I read, several years ago, that European relief agencies were shocked to find that the powdered milk they sent to some areas was simply going to waste. Since only the children among those populations could digest lactose, there was a huge surplus. Sometimes the adults were actually using the powdered milk as a whitewash. Not because they didn't know what it was, but just to get _some_ use out of it. (Many animal proteins are used as binding agents in traditional recipes for paint and such.)
This was part of what led to a major reform of relief efforts a couple of decades back. Modern emergency rations are prepared with an awareness of both cultural and biological variation, as well as such things as food allergies.
So those of you living in North America, Europe and a few other places where milk-drinking by adults is a long and honorable tradition but who can't participate, don't despair. You're actually part of a majority which outnumber those who do.
