It's absolutely fascinating to read these replies! We have a very diverse set of people here.

I had no idea that people didn't drink milk on its own. Apparently some Europeans don't. I eat cereal mostly to drink milk. If Oatly was a good substitute, I'd probably have started using it. (I haven't tried it yet.)

340ml is 0.08 gallons. That's consistent with "about a bowl of cereal."

I've seen a bunch of sides of it in the US. In the midwest where I grew up parts of my family required children to drink a glass of milk because the milk-industry propaganda at the time said it was important for kids to drink a bunch of milk for bones and growth and other stuff that was never true and was known to never be true.

But we didn't have the internet yet, so how do you fact check it? The TV said so.

I do see fewer people interested in milk as you go younger here, I think that once it was more broadly understood that milk is marginal the pressure to drink it was gone but there was still some cultural kind of urban legend nonsense that is really hard to get rid of in a society that doesn't trust experts. Which I can't blame anyone for if we're talking about nutritional experts because anyone alive for more than twenty years has seen them flip their opinion on at least a quarter of food types.

It is notable that in that part of my family, half the kids ended up lactose intolerant and still are frustrated about their parents for making them sick all the time as kids by requiring them to drink something they didn't want to drink anyway.

I liked chocolate milk because who doesn't, but after someone for the first time pointed out that it's kinda weird for humans to drink milk intended for calves (maybe I was 13 or 14?) I pretty much just stopped drinking it because it just wasn't that good anyway and now I had an excuse. My brother and mother are both lactose intolerant, it turns out.

I think a lot of people have felt low grade sick their entire lives in the US because they've never gone for long enough without dairy to notice.

>I liked chocolate milk because who doesn't, but after someone for the first time pointed out that it's kinda weird for humans to drink milk intended for calves (maybe I was 13 or 14?) I pretty much just stopped drinking it because it just wasn't that good anyway and now I had an excuse. My brother and mother are both lactose intolerant, it turns out.

Is it weird? Weird is completely abstract. Is eating the female component of a chickens reproductive output (aka an egg) weird? Is it weird to harvest oats and then harvest/extract enzymes, digest oats and mix them with processed rapeseed oil so we can avoid drinking cows milk?

At least if you drink -freshly- pasteurised cows milk you know there are fewer moving parts in the process of getting ingredient into your system.

Food wise everything is weird when you look at it under the right setting. Tofu is like the cheese of a soybean. Burgers are random bits of animal ground up flattened and fried. Mushrooms and fungi are weird almost alien growths. Fish are weird and slimy. Prawns are almost like giant insects from the sea.

When I think about attitudes towards food, I find it weirder that when we eat pork but are happy to throw away all the offal, cheeks, neck, knuckle, ears, ribs(!!!) and just keep the chops and some back for bacon because it is "weird" to eat all those other bits. Or with a chicken we eat just the breast and dump the rest. And look at Chinese people as weird for eating chickens feet. At least they don't waste the animals they eat!

> When I think about attitudes towards food, I find it weirder that when we eat pork but are happy to throw away all the offal, cheeks, neck, knuckle, ears, ribs

Recently on a different discussion board some guy mentioned that he wanted to thaw the fish and left it on a counter instead of in the fridge - after some time he noticed that apparently a fly left eggs on small part of it, after he saw that he threw it into trash. There were various reposnses from "ewwww, you did it right!" to "it was perfectly fine to cook" One of the responses which I remembered was: "you just wasted life and death of this fish"

These are very simple words and seemingly obvious but it caught me by surprise a bit and I noticed that not always I'm thinking about my food like this. In a world where food can be highly processed, where a fish, chicken, pig can no longer resemble living creature but just some meaty pieces it's easy (and comfortable!) to skip, ignore the part that it was living being. I played a bit with this thought in my mind and went into procrastination area - is it "fair" to use life and death of multiple animals and plants to sustain, propel myself and then do nothing productive with this energy?

It's like I said, it was an excuse to avoid drinking something I didn't like that much anyway. Yes, weird will always be subjective, thanks for clearing that up.

Fair enough. It wasn't meant as an attack - I get frustrated how arbitrary and social people's attitudes are with food.

The same people that consider mouldy Roquefort to be delicious might consider durian a sin against humanity with little appreciation of the hypocrisy at play.

Lactose intolerance is actually the original state for (adult) humans, while lactase persistence is an evolved adaption in cultures that drink a lot of unfermented dairy.

Which kind of proves that dairy is a significant enough part of many cultures' diet that it caused an evolutionary change! But these days you can buy lactase very cheaply in pill form, so really anyone can "have" the adaptation.

And many cultures with genetic lactose intolerance still consume a lot of fermented dairy.

> because the milk-industry propaganda at the time said it was important for kids to drink a bunch of milk for bones and growth and other stuff that was never true and was known to never be true.

Care to provide some proofs? I live in a post-soviet country and from stories I heard regarding USSR, even adults in factories received milk (for free) daily.

> milk-industry propaganda at the time said it was important for kids to drink a bunch of milk for bones and growth and other stuff that was never true and was known to never be true.

You seem to be saying that the human body cannot make productive use of the calcium from cow's milk. Do you have a source for this?

Not judging, but around me, it's usually rare to drink milk after the age of 8 (my kid stopped liking milk around that time, and most of their friends too).

We do eat a lot of yogourt and cheese. The province use to over-produce milk and there was so much advertising to consume it. Everyone kind of got fed up I guess.

I've never seen an adult drink pure milk, other than in some movies. I guess it's an american thing? Any Europeans here who drink pints of milk care to comment?

You'll find most Dutch reading this topic slightly confused that people don't drink milk straight-up in the morning or during lunch. It's a staple in the majority of households here still.

Cow milk is recommended as part of the diet of young children, with government guidance noting that although calcium-enriched alternatives to cow milk (such as oat milk with added calcium) seem fine, there is as of yet insufficient data to suggest that replacing cow milk from the diet of young children won't have a negative effect. It's a fair and balanced view I suppose.

In the 70s a dairy campaign taught everyone that three pints of milk a day was healthy, but that kind of propaganda is in the past. Still, the Dutch tend to have a very positive view of our dairy industry, in part aided by animal welfare programs and certifications. That doesn't address the environmental impact of course.

I have switched to cow milk with a certified guarantee of decent treatment of the cows involved for my young son, and oat milk (Oatly usually) for us.

Austrian here. I regularly drink pure milk, sometimes a full litre at once (sometimes raw, which probably isn't a wise decision). Though I have to add that I rarely drink milk outside of my home, i.e. in public or at friends' places, or see other people doing so. I also think that most of my friends don't drink as much milk, as far as I know, and I've heard some of them say that they are lactose intolerant.

North Europe here. Myself & my kids may consume at least 1 liter of milk per day up to multiple liters (with cereal, or just drinking it or making food with it). Not counting all the milk-products we consume...

In time of poverty, cow was actually essential part of life. A life saver. You get milk, butter, sour cream, cheese, cottage cheese. I think not every word from this list makes sense to some living in some other countries, because not all products are consumed in other places in the world.

The comment you reacted to was written by me, a European (Belgium & UK). I love getting a jug of fresh milk (not the supermarket stuff though). Last winter I replaced that with Oatley, as my wife is increasingly becoming vegan. It is not the same, but now I occasionally drink it in the same way.

I lived in Finland for 5 years and it is very common there. I've seen people drinking milk at pizza place for example, like 300ml~ cups. Also at the University's cafeteria during lunch time students would drink pure milk with their meal.

Finn here, yes it's normal to drink milk. When I was growing up, the school lunch hall had big posters about how milk is important for your health.

Eastern European, I drink milk (though lactose free, I like it but am lactose intolerant) either by itself (cold) or with a croissant or something similar. It is pretty common here for people to drink milk by itself. I was unaware people only consumed milk with their coffee, that is strange to me.

Also, question to people who only drink milk with coffee: Do you buy small processed pouches of milk for one cup of coffee, or do you drink enough coffee to use up a 1L (~4 "cups" in US lingo) packaging of milk before it goes bad in the fridge?

German here, I drink milk almost very day. Most people I know drink some at least occasionally.

Hello from Poland. Milk is actually the item that runs out fastest in my home. I'm drinking half a cup with each coffee which I can drink more than 5 a day since I discovered decaf. Sometimes I drink pure milk when I'm little hungry and thirsty but not enough to bother with a proper meal.

We were given glass of boiled milk every day at school, and I don't remember any kid being lactose intolerant. I didn't like it back then. I prefer cold.

When I'm eating cooked buckwheat grains, glass of milk suits me best to wash it down.

French here.

We always have milk at home, my 16 and 13 yo children drink it, or eat with muesli

One of them drinks pure milk, the other much less. I do it from time to time my wife rarely to never.

Japan, in particular after a hot spring bath. In fact they will have vending machines full of single portion milk bottles for you to enjoy.

Sweden here. Pints might be an exaggeration, but definitely a staple in my fridge.

It's unusual in South-East Europe in my experience. It's far more common to eat Bulgarian yogurt instead.

I'm Canadian and I still drink it as an adult. It's good with desserts.

All the replies so far are about how nobody drinks pure milk, so...

I drink roughly a gallon a week, personally. Whole, usually.

Drank a pint a day until I was 18

I'm not grandparent but no one drinks pure milk in my environment.

I've only seen that in American movies (I'm from Europe).

I have a friend who used to drink milk as a teenager and had to stop because it caused some complication. This was 20 years ago, I don't remember the details.

It's pretty common to drink pure milk in America, if you're lactose tolerant, which the majority of the people here are. Not everyone does, of course, but it's not unusual here by any means.