The Milk Wars

Or, almond, cashew, oat, coconut...so many choices

Photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash

As loosely promised, I have a piece of flash fiction to share next week, but I already had this lovely little bit about milk cued up, so you get it first.

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“People weren’t meant to drink cows milk. We’re the only animals that drink milk from another animal and beyond infancy.”

Declared my cashew-milk-loving husband.

We were sitting at the kitchen table when he said this in response to our oldest child declining his offer to share the cashew milk in the face of an empty cow’s milk jug. Jack said he didn’t like the taste or the texture of cashew “milk,” and I concurred. I then asked Jason if he was going to give up all that bovine-derived cheese he eats. Cut to the mid 90s…

When we were nineteen, my best friend and long-time roommate became lactose intolerant, throwing a large, rusty wrench into our communal cereal-eating habits. She discovered Lactaid milk and insisted it tasted as good the regular stuff. Like, Jason, she generously offered it to me when I was out of moo-cow milk. Like Jack, I tried it but found it…off-putting. At that age, I probably loudly declared, “This tastes like shit!” while gagging dramatically.

Kelly was struggling with a lot of food intolerances, and I’m sure at the time, Lactaid was a godsend. She could still enjoy our refined-sugar laden, fiber-free Rice Krispy Treat cereal, and she hadn’t had milk in so long before she found Lactaid, I’m sure it did taste almost as good. To her. As opposed to me, who had absolutely no reason to convince myself of it’s cereal worthiness.

The Milk Wars

Other animals do not drink milk beyond infancy, and they only drink that of their own species. But we humans do a LOT of things other animals don’t do, and it’s folly to say all those things are bad. We perform life- and quality-of-life-saving medical procedures, for an extreme example. More mundanely, and closer to the milk debate, we cook our food — a process that makes it safer to eat, last longer, and often taste better. We make cheese out of all kinds of things, from cow’s or goat’s milk to cashews and soy beans. So I don’t buy the “no other animal does it” as a valid argument.

I could get on a high horse and say mine and my kid’s cow’s milk drinking is some sort of social statement that we are not high-maintenance or trendy, that we are down-to-earth sorts of people. Or I could feel insecure about being stodgy and old-fashioned. It’s easy to turn something as simple as milk-drinking into judgment of self and others, but that’s not what this is about.

The kids and I drink cows milk because we like it, it’s inexpensive, and it has not, as of yet, caused us any digestive issues.

Jason drinks cashew milk because he feels like that’s better for him. My sister drinks oat milk (which is the only non-dairy milk that passes my cereal test) because she’s gotten somewhat lactose intolerant. And Kelly doesn’t drink any milk at all anymore because her intestinal system is it’s own, highly sensitive and mysterious internal galaxy.

I know we all (especially us Gen X and older people) poo-poo on the vast milk selection at the coffee shop. We roll our eyes because we are secretly intimidated by all of the choices, not just of milk but options like half-caff, light-foam, etc, etc. Cue the coffee scene from LA Story:

That is how we cope with feeling intimidated — with condescending judgment.

But having been by Kelly’s side in the mid-90s, when she was struggling to find things she could eat and restaurants were a nightmare, I find it delightful there are now so many more options for people’s dietary wants and needs. It’s wonderful that a lactose intolerant person can order a latte and not pay for it in the bathroom later. It is incredibly helpful when menus are marked with little icons indicating what is vegetarian, vegan, or gluten-free.

Side Note: Just please don’t print the caloric content next to everything. My recovering-from-diet-culture ass cannot handle having that thrown up where I can’t avoid seeing it. Put it under a flap or something if you MUST print it.)

Yeah, there’s a flip side. The choices can be mind-boggling and overkilled and start to seem like, in the face of providing so much variety, we have sacrificed quality — the idea of doing just one or two things and doing them very well. That approach definitely has merit. But it shouldn’t turn into judging people for needing different milk.

ANYWAY. Drink the milk you want, be it almond, cashew, coconut, or oat (what Louis Black would argue is actually “juice” seeing as it comes from a plant.) Or drink your moo-cow f*&k milk. I don’t know why I suddenly felt the need to censor the f word — something about this being about milk and my association of milk with children.

Should we decide that dairy cows are unsustainable as climate change progresses at its geologically (or even by people standards) rapid rate, I will happily switch to the next best thing, oat milk, or whatever better creamy liquid has been developed by that time. Change is inevitable. And so is other people’s milk. Deal with it.