July 6, 2015
by Jason Ford
Ford on Food
I have a love/hate relationship with milk.
I love to use it in cooking. But personally, I hate the bloated feeling I get after drinking it.
So I’ve now turned to soy milk and almond milk, which seems better (for me anyway).
And I also drink my coffee black as a straight shot of espresso.
As a chef I would be lost without milk, though, because it’s an essential ingredient in many of my favourite recipes.
However for some time I’ve been questioning whether humans should be consuming something that is really meant for calves, baby goats and lambs.
In fact, humans are the only species on Earth that consume milk past infancy.
Maybe we are not really supposed to be drinking it into adulthood?
But on the flip side, I don’t think I could live without some of my favourite cheeses, which don’t seem to have any effect on me.
So, while I battle with my own hypocrisies, here are some facts about milk:
- Milk is a white liquid produced by female mammals, which provides nutrition to newborns.
- In western countries the most common milk consumed by humans is sourced from cows.
- Milk is considered a very rich source of nutrients and the highest source of calcium.
- Not all milk is supplied from cows – people drink milk from goats, sheep, camels, buffalo, yaks and donkeys.
- I once saw a documentary were Mongolians were milking horses, and churning it into a kind of fermented booze. I even heard that zebra milk is consumed in parts of Africa. Reindeer are also a source of milk – maybe Santa actually has a reindeer milk moustache?
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Fluffy Ambrosia Milk
Ingredients:
- 140gm of peaches in natural juice
- 1 tbsp fresh pasionfruit pulp
- 2 tbsp coconut milk
- 1 cup skim milk
- 1 cup apricot nectar
- 1 scoop fat-reduced vanilla ice-cream
- A couple of ice cubes
Method:
- Blend all ingredients together in a food processor
- When it’s thick and frothy, pour it into chilled glasses and lightly sprinkle with some toasted desiccated coconut.
