Interesting read
Lactose intolerance and evolution. I think Chris Rock said it best: You think anyone in Rwanda’s got a fucking lactose intolerance?
Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.
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December 9th, 2011 at 10:15 am
Farmers who consumed cow’s milk were also more likely to contract cow pox, which conveyed at least some immunity to the contraction of Small pox (V. major), which was fatal about 35% of the time during the 18th century, killing about 400,000 Europeans each year during that time period.
This killing off of people who did not contract cowpox would have the long term affect of selecting individuals who were not lactose intolerant, thus increasing the incidence of people who were not intolerant in the areas where milk production was more prevalent.
December 9th, 2011 at 11:10 am
Actually the only ethnic group that doesn’t suffer some from lactose intolerance is northern Europeans. Including Germans, and Brits. (And even 10% of the Danes can’t drink it. You wonder how that works out for them.)
Everybody else turns milk into cheese because it is too warm to store milk (think the age before refrigeration) and the bacterial digest the lactose.
So yes, people in Rwanda do have lactose intolerance.
Just like I can’t eat shellfish even if I am starving to death. Anaphylactic shock or starving to death? Die today, or hope to find something better to eat in the morning. What would you choose?
It is sad to watch people discount the problems of others. I can’t drink milk. It makes me violently ill (not anaphylactic shock ill, gastrointestinal ill) My mother constantly got advice to force me to drink milk. (IT IS GOOD FOR YOU.) No, it isn’t good for everyone. We are not all carbon copies of each other – not all just like you.
December 9th, 2011 at 11:18 am
As a vegan, back in the early 90’s when it wasn’t as common, I’d always get people telling me “But you need milk to be healthy!”, and I’d point out that it’s unnatural for us (or any mammal) to drink milk past infancy. Milk is baby food, and although it can be a good addition to a diet, it’s hardly a requirement. But everyone’s been brainwashed by dairy industry ads to think that if you don’t drink a gallon of milk a day, your bones will basically explode.
December 9th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
The people in Rwanda have Machete intolerance. And yes they do have lactose intolerance. So Unc do you go to Chris Rock for ALL your medical information or just a little???
December 9th, 2011 at 1:40 pm
oddly enough, I hear that when they give Plumpy’nut to starving African kids, and those kids gain weight almost overnight on a mostly peanut-based diet, I understand that developing a peanut allergy is extremely rare.
Does that make severe life-threatening food allergies a first-world disease?
December 9th, 2011 at 1:45 pm
>Everybody else turns milk into cheese because it is too warm to store milk
Not only that, but you end up with a high fat, high protein food that travels well and can last a decade if waxed and stored in a cool place.
December 9th, 2011 at 2:22 pm
I was going to say that “Yes, of course the people of Rwanda have lactose intolerance,” but Zendo Deb got there first, so all I have to say is “What he said.”
December 9th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
Actually, the Tutsi are about the only Sub-Saharans who can digest lactose. The Hutus, generally, can’t. Resentment at this is one of the reasons the Hutus in Rwanda chopped so many Tutsis to death. My former archbishop, the guy who started the Anglican Mission in the Americas, is a Tutsi.
December 9th, 2011 at 2:46 pm
There is also some evidence that the spread of the Indo-European language group was abetted by this lactose tolerance mutation. One mutant gene allowed a herder to stamp both his genes and his language on the Eurasian continent. Dairying is several times more food efficient than herding alone.
Justthisguy: Dairying allowed the Tutsis to push all of their neighbors off their land through sheer numbers. If they had gotten that mutation a few thousand years earlier, they would have owned all of Africa by now.
December 9th, 2011 at 4:51 pm
brainwashed?
Milk and cheese taste good. No brainwashing involved.
December 9th, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Now, I’m all Northern European, German and English, but if I drink some milk, better than even odds I’ll have symptoms of food poisoning in a couple of hours. I never got broken up about that because I’ve hated the taste since infancy. I like cheese, though, except cheddar. I’ve had some exotic ones; my favorite is St Agur, and I’ll eat that til my penicillin allergy starts up.
December 9th, 2011 at 6:33 pm
Yep, Evil. The average across an isolated population tends to have a lot of the same genes, but that’s just the average. When your parents cut the cards and shuffled the deck to make you, you just didn’t get the lactase card. (well, technically two decks, and discard half of each)
What the PC people don’t want to admit is that there is more to racial differences than skin color,which just happened to go along with some other traits.
A lot of Afghans, for instance, are pale and blue-eyed, but seem a bit genetically distinct in some ways, both behaviorally and biochemically, from Western Europeans. I have heard of trouble finding blood donors for them, for example.
I think we’re getting into the same fix as those poor doggies bred by the AKC loonies, who breed for appearance instead of behavior. The SS did the same stupid thing, encouraging marriages only in respect to Nordic appearance, without consideration for brains or temperament. One of the reasons the Nazis forbade IQ tests was that the Jews always kicked their asses on said tests.
December 10th, 2011 at 5:19 am
You can lose your ability to digest lactose due to a severe illness/injury or antibiotic use.
An aggravating problem with cheeses is the amount of lactose in a particular type can not only vary from different manufacturers, but also within the same block. I get the impression it may be sort of “swirled” through it.
The harder the cheese, the less lactose, generally. Why it can’t be 100% removed is puzzling. I would think there would be a market for it.
December 10th, 2011 at 10:20 am
Try a little dash of lion’s urine. The Maasai swear by it.
December 10th, 2011 at 3:48 pm
ATLien, I didn’t say people ate cheese/dairy because they were brainwashed—yes, it’s yummy, and that’s enough to get people to eat it.
I said we’ve been brainwashed into thinking we won’t get any calcium if we don’t eat it, that we’ll be inherently unhealthy, and that it’s “natures most perfect food” for us.
It’s natures most perfect food for babies. Adult human beings do not require cow’s milk to be healthy. That’s all I’m saying.
December 10th, 2011 at 10:46 pm
Guav is right (and I speak as a dairy fiend). Say “I need calcium” and nearly everybody thinks of milk, even though spinach and other dark green leafy veggies are a good source as well.