![]() People first domesticated the most important dairy animals – cattle, sheep and goats – in Southwest Asia, although domestic cattle had been independently derived from wild aurochs populations several times since. This development occurred independently in several global locations from as early as 9000–7000 BC in Mesopotamia to 3500–3000 BC in the Americas. Humans first learned to consume the milk of other mammals regularly following the domestication of animals during the Neolithic Revolution or the development of agriculture. Per capita consumption of milk and milk products in selected countries in 2011 Country India is the largest producer and consumer of cattle- and buffalo milk in the world. Those groups who continue to tolerate milk have often exercised great creativity in using the milk of domesticated ungulates, not only cattle, but also sheep, goats, yaks, water buffalo, horses, reindeer and camels. Lactase, the enzyme needed to digest lactose, reaches its highest levels in the human small intestine immediately after birth, and then begins a slow decline unless milk is consumed regularly. The sugar lactose is found only in milk, and possibly in forsythia flowers and a few tropical shrubs. Whole milk, butter, and cream have high levels of saturated fat. Modern industrial processes use milk to produce casein, whey protein, lactose, condensed milk, powdered milk, and many other food-additives and industrial products. Milk is processed into a variety of products such as cream, butter, yogurt, kefir, ice cream, and cheese. This mutation allowed milk to be used as a new source of nutrition which could sustain populations when other food sources failed. 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)".
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