38 – Milk
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Milk is a white liquid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. It is the primary source of nutrition for young mammals before they are able to digest other types of food. Early-lactation milk contains colostrum, which carries the mother's antibodies to the baby and can reduce the risk of many diseases in the baby. The precise components of raw milk vary by species and by a number of other factors, but it contains significant amounts of saturated fat, protein and calcium as well as vitamin C. Cow's milk has a pH ranging from 6.4 to 6.8, making it slightly acidic.
In many cultures of the world, especially the Western world, humans continue to consume milk beyond infancy, using the milk of other animals (especially cattle, goats and sheep) as a food product. For millennia, cow's milk has been processed into dairy products such as cream, butter, yogurt, kefir, ice cream, and especially the more durable and easily transportable product, cheese. Modern industrial processes produce casein, whey protein, lactose, condensed milk, powdered milk, and many other food-additive and industrial products.
Humans are an exception in the natural world for consuming milk past infancy, despite the fact that many humans show some degree (some as little as 5%) of lactose intolerance, a characteristic that is more prevalent among individuals of African or Asian descent. The sugar lactose is found only in milk, forsythia flowers, and a few tropical shrubs. The enzyme needed to digest lactose, lactase, reaches its highest levels in the small intestines after birth and then begins a slow decline unless milk is consumed regularly. On the other hand, those groups who do continue to tolerate milk often have exercised great creativity in using the milk of domesticated ungulates, not only of cattle, but also sheep, goats, yaks, water buffalo, horses, reindeers and camels. The largest producer and consumer of cattle and buffalo milk in the world is India.
Humans first learned to regularly consume the milk of other mammals following the domestication of animals during the Neolithic Revolution or the invention of agriculture. This development occurred independently in several places around the world from as early as 9000–7000 BC in Southwest Asia to 3500–3000 BC in the Americas. The most important dairy animals—cattle, sheep and goats—were first domesticated in Southwest Asia, although domestic cattle has been independently derived from wild auroch populations several times since. Initially animals were kept for meat, and archaeologist Andrew Sherratt has suggested that dairying, along with the exploitation of domestic animals for hair and labor, began much later in a separate secondary products revolution in the 4th millennium BC. Sherratt's model is not supported by recent findings, based on the analysis of lipid residue in prehistoric pottery, that show that dairying was practiced in the early phases of agriculture in Southwest Asia, by at least the 7th millennium BC.
From Southwest Asia domestic dairy animals spread to Europe (beginning around 7000 BC but not reaching Britain and Scandinavia until after 4000 BC), and South Asia (7000–5500 BC). The first farmers in central Europe and Britain milked their animals. Pastoral andpastoral nomadic economies, which rely predominantly or exclusively on domestic animals and their products rather than crop farming, were developed as European farmers moved into the Pontic-Caspian steppe in the 4th millennium BC, and subsequently spread across much of the Eurasian steppe. Sheep and goats were introduced to Africa from Southwest Asia, but African cattle may have been independently domesticated around 7000–6000 BC. Camels, domesticated in central Arabia in the 4th millennium BC, have also been used as a dairy animal in North Africa and the Arabian peninsula. In the rest of the world (i.e., East and Southeast Asia, the Americas and Australia) milk and dairy products were historically not a large part of the diet, either because they remained populated by hunter-gatherers who did not keep animals or the local agricultural economies did not include domesticated dairy species. Milk consumption became common in these regions comparatively recently, as a consequence of European colonialism and political domination over much of the world in the last 500 years.
In 1863, French chemist and biologist Louis Pasteur invented pasteurization, a method of killing harmful bacteria in beverages and food products.
In 1884, Doctor Hervey Thatcher, an American inventor from New York, invented the first glass milk bottle, called 'Thatcher's Common Sense Milk Jar', which was sealed with a waxed paper disk. Later, in 1932, plastic-coated paper milk cartons were introduced commercially as a consequence of their invention by Victor W. Farris.
Drink-Based Recipe – Milk Pizza Dough1 pouch (8 g) of instant (rapid rise) dry yeast
2 tsp (10 ml) sugar
1 1/4 cup (310 ml) warm milk
3 tbsp (45 ml) melted butter
About 3 cups (750 ml) unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp (5 ml) salt
instructions
In a large bowl, mix yeast, sugar, warm milk (do not bring to a boil) and melted butter.
Let rest 10 minutes to allow yeast to activate. Foam will form along the surface.
Mix flour and salt. Gradually add to bowl, mixing with a fork, and eventually with your hands if using a fork becomes difficult. Incorporate flour until dough is consistent and fairly firm.
Flour a work surface and knead the dough, adding a bit of flour until dough no longer sticks. To knead, fold and flatten the dough for roughly 5 minutes, using the palm of your hand or fist.
Place dough ball in a bowl greased with butter, cover, and allow dough to rise in a warm, draft-free location. The dough must double in volume. This should take about 45 minutes.
Deflate the dough prior to working it according to the chosen recipe.
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Topic: LoC: Top 65 Beverages (Read 40842 times)
