Do humans need to drink milk?

Answer 1

Human infants, like all infant mammals, need to drink their mother's milk or an appropriate substitute.

The vast majority of mammals, including humans, lose the ability to digest the sugar in milk after infancy. About 25% of humans (mostly of northern European descent) have a genetic mutation that allows them to continue to digest milk sugar or lactose. The rest of us (an estimated 75% of us) are lactose-intolerant as adults, including the vast majority of people who are of Asian, African, Native American, and southern European descent. Symptoms of lactose intolerance include bloating, pain or cramps in the lower belly, gas, diarrhea, and vomiting.

In addition, people in the countries that consume the most dairy have the highest osteoporosis rates. Osteoporosis and kidney stones are from bone loss caused by eating animal proteins and dietary acids. Hard cheese like Parmesan is the greatest source of dietary acids. The researchers at Harvard suggested that foods like collards, bok choy, and baked beans are safer choices than dairy for obtaining calcium. In fact, watercress, tofu, mustard greens, turnip greens, basil, collards, spinach, beet greens, spearmint, rapini, chicory, dandelion greens, thyme, parsley, Okra, wakame, cardoons, chives, endive, cilantro, chard, kale, butterhead lettuce, bay leaves, celery, leaf lettuce, scallions, broccoli, cabbage, hearts of palm, and nori, all have more calcium per calorie than milk. Other plant foods that contain calcium include: beans, nuts like almonds and seeds like sesame, and whole grains.