Do you know for how long of a time milk has been consumed in the world? Not many people think about it, but it took a while before milk could be drunk without people getting sick from it.
For a good amount of time researchers believed it was the matter of natural selection, subsequently lactose tolerance that enabled people in some parts of the world to drink milk while milk drinking was impossible for people in other parts of the world simply because they were unable to digest the milk sugar lactose.
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With developing the practice of dairying, people also developed lactose tolerance and milk became an important food that gave many benefits.
Benefits of milk for early drinkers
There are plenty of people lactose-intolerant today too. About two-thirds of people all around the world cannot consume milk because of lactose intolerance. For everyone else, however, drinking milk is a habit that comes with many advantages. To the early consumers, milk provided two very important nutrients: calcium and vitamin D.
Now were early milk drinkers aware of these benefits? Perhaps yes, perhaps not, but milk definitely brought upon them positive health changes.
The first people to start drinking fresh milk were central Europeans, but those to the north benefited even more because they were able to compensate the lack of sunlight with milk. Milk contains vitamin D, which is an essential nutrient in itself, but plays an important part in calcium absorption also.
As a protein rich food source, milk helped people in the northern groups establish a more balanced diet because there was constant access to it as opposed to other food that was only available seasonally.
In fact, history shows that upon discovering agriculture, people started relying exclusively on the few crops they learn to grew, which resulted in a diet that was far from varied. An unbalanced diet led to many health problems such as tooth decay, low-bone density and heart diseases.
Milk offered nutrients that weren’t available with the first domesticated crops. This is what whole milk offers nutrition-wise. Information is provided for 1 cup (approximately 240 grams) of milk.
Vitamins
Vitamin A 249 IU
Vitamin D 97.6 IU
Vitamin E 0.1 mg
Vitamin K 0.5 mcg
Thiamin 0.1 mg
Riboflavin 0.4 mg
Niacin 0.3 mg
Vitamin B6 0.1 mg
Folate 12.2 mcg
Vitamin B12 1.1 mcg
Pantothenic acid 0.9 mcg
Choline 34.9 mg
Betaine 1.5 mg
Minerals
Calcium 276 mg
Iron 0.1 mg
Magnesium 24.4 mg
Phosphorus 222 mg
Sodium 97.6 mg
Zinc 1.0 mg
Selenium 9.0 mcg
Whole milk is calorie-rich, one cup of milk providing 146 calories and 7.9 grams fat, which represents 12 percent of the daily-recommended intake. It contains 13 percent of the protein daily value and 8 percent of the recommended cholesterol value.
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The nutrient data indicates the many benefits that consuming milk provides. The best milk to consume is cow’s milk, but don’t forget the alternatives existing today. Vegan substitutes such as almond milk, quinoa milk and coconut milk are great for people who are intolerant to lactose.