• kristina [she/her]
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      edit-2
      4 years ago

      cheese is just spoiled milk basically theres no way it wasnt independently discovered. some say earliest examples are in poland, china, really just all over the place

      • lvysaur [he/him]
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        edit-2
        4 years ago

        cows were only domesticated in the Mideast and India.

        Dairy is non-european.

          • lvysaur [he/him]
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            4 years ago

            goats and sheep were also domesticated in the mideast

            but sure I guess we can pretend that some paleoeuropean milked a wooly rhino or something once

        • kristina [she/her]
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          edit-2
          4 years ago

          im gonna go out on a limb here, but given the degree to which lactose is tolerated in germanic regions, i'd say europe has had a hold of milk for 10k+ years. i know evidence shows that southwest asia had goats first, but the genetic evidence implies european ancestors were exposed to milk for quite some time, which implies some rudimentary form of cheese making as a byproduct

          aight im done nerding

          • lvysaur [he/him]
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            edit-2
            4 years ago

            but the genetic evidence implies european ancestors were exposed to milk for quite some time, which implies some rudimentary form of cheese making as a byproduct

            It's exactly the opposite. Cheesemaking bypasses the lactose because lactose is water soluble. Even moreso if aged cheese.

            Yamnaya (basically the "Aryans" that are worshipped so much) had a 0% frequency of the lactose tolerance gene, despite being buried with loads of cattle: https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-l1YmSXd7yQA/VhlDdgADsfI/AAAAAAAAAx0/081XEAvT0PQ/s1600/pigmentation%2BMathieson.jpg

            Keep in mind that these Yamnaya Aryans were half Middle Eastern by DNA.

            but given the degree to which lactose is tolerated in germanic regions

            Also irrelevant, lactose is tolerated just as much or moreso in Gulf Arabs, Northwest India, and Sahelian Africa.

            • kristina [she/her]
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              4 years ago

              neat. is it really? i thought the population in northern europe was 80-90%, whereas those areas were around 40-50%

              • lvysaur [he/him]
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                4 years ago

                Nope. That's a combination of eurocentric sampling and white wewuzzery.

                The high lactose tolerant areas are northwest/central Europe, northwest India/Pakistan, Arabia, Mauritania, Fulani areas, Tutsi areas, several Somali/Ethiopian areas.

                The intermediate areas are Southern India, eastern Europe. Slavs in particular are around 50%, Greeks are majority intolerant (80%).

                • kristina [she/her]
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                  4 years ago

                  is there a source for that? really curious about the numbers rn

                  • lvysaur [he/him]
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                    edit-2
                    4 years ago

                    This is the map that was making the round in the 2000s. It's been proven completely wrong but people still post it. It's still up on wikipedia which is just more evidence the website is a eurocirclejerk: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/27/Worldwide_prevalence_of_lactose_intolerance_in_recent_populations.jpg

                    This is a more recent map, which is more accurate but still has problems. Note both the huge amount of samples in Europe, and the almost total exclusion of known Lactose Intolerant European areas (Balkans, Ukraine, Russia, etc): https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/ff/Lactose_tolerance_in_the_Old_World.svg

                    It is also worth noting that the medical lactose tolerance test is done with a quarter gallon's worth of lactose. So if you're "lactose intolerant" you can still drink milk, just not a quarter gallon in one sitting. This is why Greeks and Koreans aren't exploding.

                    81% of Japanese are lactose TOLERANT when given a cup of milk: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1234085/

                  • volkvulture [none/use name]
                    ·
                    4 years ago

                    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4700599/

                    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/05/study-raises-questions-about-roots-lactose-tolerance-africa

                    https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/how-can-you-eat-dairy-if-you-lack-gene-digesting-it-fermented-milk-may-be-key-ancient

                    this shit is interesting.

    • volkvulture [none/use name]
      ·
      4 years ago

      cheese was invented somewhere between Europe and the Middle East, though China does have limited cheese-making culture that dates back thousands of years it's not as old as what's been found in Europe and Egypt and elsewhere

      https://www.nature.com/articles/nature11698