It’s kind of strange that humans saw cow udders and thought of drinking the milk from it, so how did it all begin?
Drinking milk is a relatively modern habit, dating back approximately 10,000 years—the human race is at least 300,000 years old.
Who were the first people to milk cows?
The first people who drank milk regularly were believed to be early farmers and pastoralists in Western Europe. They were the first people to live with domesticated animals like cows, sheeps and goats.
How we started drinking cow milk
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Milk has many uses this days, it can be drunk alone, with cereal, tea, coffee and it's even used to cook some meals.
However, humans have not always tolerated dairy. It has evolved because of the milk's particular nature and function in our species' history.
Adults weren’t supposed to drink milk; only babies were supposed to be able to digest milk. Babies' bodies create a lactase enzyme to digest lactose in their mother's milk.
After they stop breastfeeding, this enzyme stops working, resulting in gas, cramps, and diarrhoea in adults.
Perhaps, when milk was first drunk, it resulted in a lot of flatulence, but as more people drank milk, they began to retain their lactase enzymes active into adulthood, a phenomenon known as "lactase persistence." This mutation is in a DNA region that regulates the lactase gene's function.
The lactase persistence gene in Europe first appeared around 5,000 years ago in southern Europe and then began to develop in central Europe around 3,000 years ago, according to Assistant Professor Laure Ségurel at the Museum of Humankind in Paris.
Because of evolution, this trait is extremely common in some populations, with over 90% of people in northern Europe, Africa, and the Middle East being lactose intolerant.