• kristina [she/her]
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    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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      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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              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]
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              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.