I’ve been curious about the homesteading movement for a long time, albeit from a non-tradwife perspective. For a few years I subscribed to Mother Earth News, whose pages of solar panel installations and gardening tips filled my head with pastoral fantasies. (It’s possible that growing up in rural Pennsylvania planted a seed of affection for farm life, even though I suspect I would be terrible at it.) So I have nothing against people who decide to abandon the corporate world, or soulless suburbs, to live close to the land. I’m just not so into oppressive gender roles and unpasteurized milk.
Well, you don't actually have to drink raw milk. I always thought that is such a weird thing we do. Like eating meat, I get. People hunted and gathered so people say that is always part of being a homosapien. Raising the animal just to eat it makes sense even if not ethical. Corporation goals are profits.
But raising an animal and keeping it in a state to produce just for it's milk, is a little weird when you think about it, especially considering how many people are lactose intolerant. Also it is targeted towards everyone, like adults. Milk is made for the young. Children stop drinking milk from their human mother, so society decided the next step is to keep supplying milk from a caged animal, a completely different species, forever.
Sounds like some weird sci-fi shit.
Even beyond the whole "drinking milk is weird" thing, there's not really a reason to drink raw milk. I mean, maybe it tastes better, but that can't be worth the risk, and even the Amish have cooking pots.
so like, we finally figured out what was so special about the milk out on the dairy a few years back. i'm going to tell you the secret it was not about the milk being fresh outta the cow or anything. We drank it out of Aluminum. Cups. Cheap ones. You can buy them online and the metal makes the milk feel colder. fresher. crisper. Also it was whole milk but y'know.
But is a life without cheese and butter worth living? A croissant without butter? A pizza without cheese? I, I, no. I just can't.
I actually get panic attacks if I voluntarily eat animal stuff. So uh, yeah it's worth living.
Are you ever involuntarily fed animal stuff and are ok with it?
It's happened, and I'm not "ok" with it but it doesn't induce panic the same way because it's not my own complicit participation.
Drinking milk is more pleasant than eating grass directly, so it is not thatweird.
But... why do either?
Why do grown adults actually need to drink a liquid from another species?
The reason why adults become lactose intolerant is because they no longer need milk. You can just cut it out of your system.
I totally agree that the first human to drink animal milk was probably a very weird person. Although it probably came out of a goal to not waste resources.
There's not really a "reason" that people become lactose intolerant around age 2. Especially when most people are weaned off human milk way before then. Also, to say that there is a reason implies that humans were designed by some omnipotent force. There's plenty of times in a human's life where the nutrients found in milk would be beneficial to have, like after a woman goes through menopause.
It is only recently that we have an abundance of resources that we can choose where we get our nutrients from. And if one were really living off the land, they would not have that choice.
I said reason meaning nutrition wise. But I see your points. If it's there already, might as well use it.
I drink very little milk.
I eat a lot of cheese and butter.
That's just more-complicated milk.
Back when, nutrients were hard to come by.
It's not about need it's about efficiency. Milk lets you get calories, especially protein in a way that doesn't kill the animal with less effort than hunting and gathering. That allows for a time and labor surplus that can enable specialization and society as a whole to exist. It's not just drinking, butter, cheese, baking, and fermentation with it are super common uses.
i don't need to i enjoy it. it's decadent. put it on some berries with a lil sugar.
Damned decadent homesteaders.
If I had animals that were already lactating, I'd probably make cheese. I would also probably make 2 different batches to do a side by side test between pasteurized cheese and non-pasteurized cheese just so I can see if Europeans are right.