Stupid Question ™
Jan. 16, 2003
By John Ruch
© 2003
Q: Is it true that wheat from ancient Egyptian tombs can still grow?
—H.L.
A: As test after test has conclusively demonstrated, the “mummy wheat” found in ancient Egyptian tombs never germinates.
The suspiciousness of the claim is obvious when you see how it was first presented in the early 1840s. It was in the form of an ad claiming the wheat was preternaturally productive, and offering to sell you some for the modern equivalent of about $12 for a single grain (minimum purchase: a packet of 10 grains).
Wheat, some of it superficially well-preserved, is indeed found in ancient Egyptian tombs, placed there as food for the deceased’s journey in the afterlife.
But it’s usually in earthenware containers or even in model silos. The original mummy wheat, however, supposedly came from a bag found clutched in a mummy’s hand—further indication that this was just another “miracle seed” hoax designed to capitalize on European Egyptomania and its life-after-death symbolism.
There is no doubt that some of the mummy wheat grew—though what it grew into was modern British varieties, not ancient Egyptian ones.
Claims of miraculous fertility were often backed with Bible quotes, especially from Genesis 41:5, where the pharaoh dreams of a single wheat stalk with seven “ears” of grain on it. It was surely no coincidence that the English Newcastle Farmers’ Club in 1846 claimed that its mummy wheat was as big as “seven English ears [of wheat] rolled into one.”
Soon local guides at Egypt’s tombs were selling their own mummy wheat to gullible tourists.
Botanists debunked mummy wheat from the start. Most tenacious was Wallis Budge, the British Museum’s director of Egyptian antiquities. In 1897 he provided the Royal Botanic Gardens with genuine 3,000-year-old tomb wheat to plant under controlled conditions. When nothing happened after three months, the seeds were exhumed and found to be rotting away.
In 1933, Budge again provided wheat to the National Institute of Agricultural Botany, which found the seeded rotted completely in 16 days with no germination at all.
Many similar experiments have had identical results. Indeed, cultivated cereals have some of the shortest shelf lives of all seeds. Specimens a mere 20 years old have proven unviable in scientific tests. Top-quality wheat stored under normal, dry, cool conditions will last about five years at best, and more likely about two years.
With its hoax origins forgotten, the mummy wheat idea has survived due to theoretical credibility. After all, Egyptian tombs are unusually dry, fairly cool and might be sealed off from the standard insects and fungi.
The Royal Botanic Garden last year released a study attacking the theoretical underpinning, saying that while tombs are certainly dry, their temperatures actually fluctuate widely.
Using the shelf life of grains kept in modern subzero storage facilities as a guide, the Gardens estimated that under theoretically ideal conditions, only one wheat seed in 1,000 would survive in a tomb after about 240 years, with survival sharply declining after that to absolute zero after millennia.
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
Showing posts with label food. Show all posts
March 28, 2008
Pistachio Nuts Dyed Red/Family Trees
Stupid Question ™
June 20, 2002
By John Ruch
© 2002
Q: Why are pistachio nuts painted red?
—James R. Skidmore
A: As we’ve discussed before in the cases of cheddar cheese and red soda, there are three basic reasons to color food: to fraudulently cover up spoilage; to cover up minor imperfections that are not harmful but look undesirable; and to make the product recognizable to consumers.
In the case of pistachios (which are technically classified as seeds, not nuts), the latter two reasons seem to have been behind the use of red dye.
Pistachios are native to the eastern Mediterranean coast of the Middle East and have been used in cooking throughout the Arab world for millennia. Through trade, the taste for pistachios spread through Asia and Europe. In countries such as France, where pistachios could be cultivated, they became a part of the cuisine.
Pistachios first became available in the US around 1880, but were used mostly in fancy recipes. Their real heyday began in the 1930s, when nut markets got the idea of selling them in vending machines.
The problem was that pistachios were an imported product and came mostly from the Middle East, where they were harvested by hand and had a long journey to the vending machine. They typically arrived stained and battered-looking—in general, not very appetizing.
An obvious solution was to dye them a uniform color. (Modern studies have shown consumers believe uniformly colored foods to be better, and literally experience them as tasting better.)
Red was chosen because it made pistachios stand out. Studies have since shown that red foods are perceived as being fresher and more flavorful than most other colors.
In the 1970s, California farmers began growing pistachios. With modern harvesting methods and a relatively short trip to market, the pistachios looked fine and didn’t need to be covered up with dye. And in fact, most of the pistachios sold in the US are their natural color (a tan shell with the California variety’s distinctive bright green nut).
However, the power of color is strong. A small amount of pistachios are still dyed red for markets in which consumers have come to expect them to be that color and won’t recognize naturally-colored pistachios—and possibly wouldn’t buy them if they did.
* * * * *
How right I was last week when I said the genealogical terminology for cousins is confusing: I screwed it up myself. Reader Sean Scheiderer said he believed his first cousin’s child was his first cousin, once removed—and that the terminology described in my column supported that. But I later defined a first cousin, once removed as “the child of one of your grandparent’s siblings.”
“So what is he?” Sean complained.
Actually, both relationships are first cousins, once removed. My mistake was in saying my example was definitive. Cousins can be “removed” (separated by a generation) either forward or backward on the family tree. Genealogists typically work backward (that is to say, they’re interested in generations earlier than themselves), so that’s why I fixated on the grandparent’s sibling’s child example.
June 20, 2002
By John Ruch
© 2002
Q: Why are pistachio nuts painted red?
—James R. Skidmore
A: As we’ve discussed before in the cases of cheddar cheese and red soda, there are three basic reasons to color food: to fraudulently cover up spoilage; to cover up minor imperfections that are not harmful but look undesirable; and to make the product recognizable to consumers.
In the case of pistachios (which are technically classified as seeds, not nuts), the latter two reasons seem to have been behind the use of red dye.
Pistachios are native to the eastern Mediterranean coast of the Middle East and have been used in cooking throughout the Arab world for millennia. Through trade, the taste for pistachios spread through Asia and Europe. In countries such as France, where pistachios could be cultivated, they became a part of the cuisine.
Pistachios first became available in the US around 1880, but were used mostly in fancy recipes. Their real heyday began in the 1930s, when nut markets got the idea of selling them in vending machines.
The problem was that pistachios were an imported product and came mostly from the Middle East, where they were harvested by hand and had a long journey to the vending machine. They typically arrived stained and battered-looking—in general, not very appetizing.
An obvious solution was to dye them a uniform color. (Modern studies have shown consumers believe uniformly colored foods to be better, and literally experience them as tasting better.)
Red was chosen because it made pistachios stand out. Studies have since shown that red foods are perceived as being fresher and more flavorful than most other colors.
In the 1970s, California farmers began growing pistachios. With modern harvesting methods and a relatively short trip to market, the pistachios looked fine and didn’t need to be covered up with dye. And in fact, most of the pistachios sold in the US are their natural color (a tan shell with the California variety’s distinctive bright green nut).
However, the power of color is strong. A small amount of pistachios are still dyed red for markets in which consumers have come to expect them to be that color and won’t recognize naturally-colored pistachios—and possibly wouldn’t buy them if they did.
* * * * *
How right I was last week when I said the genealogical terminology for cousins is confusing: I screwed it up myself. Reader Sean Scheiderer said he believed his first cousin’s child was his first cousin, once removed—and that the terminology described in my column supported that. But I later defined a first cousin, once removed as “the child of one of your grandparent’s siblings.”
“So what is he?” Sean complained.
Actually, both relationships are first cousins, once removed. My mistake was in saying my example was definitive. Cousins can be “removed” (separated by a generation) either forward or backward on the family tree. Genealogists typically work backward (that is to say, they’re interested in generations earlier than themselves), so that’s why I fixated on the grandparent’s sibling’s child example.
McDonald's Hamburger Sales
Stupid Question ™
Oct. 4, 2001
By John Ruch
© 2001
Q: How many hamburgers has McDonald’s sold? How come they don’t put the number on their sign anymore? And do Big Macs count as two?
—Bifani
A: McDonald’s has probably sold more than 100 billion hamburgers in its 53 years. But an exact number is hard to come by. For one thing, those numbers on the signs were always just educated guesses.
And in 1994, McDonald’s “made a conscious decision to stop counting,” according to spokesperson Walt Riker.
Putting a running tally of hamburger sales on its storefront advertising was a publicity device that dated to the beginning of McDonald’s as we know it. The fast-food company started in 1948 as a California chain. Ray Kroc, the guy who sold the McDonald brothers their milkshake mixers, convinced them to franchise to him.
Kroc, who eventually bought out the brothers and became a corporate kingpin, opened his first McDonald’s franchise in 1955 in Des Plaines, Illinois. The restaurant featured a road sign that proudly announced, “1 Million Served” (1 million hamburgers, that is).
As McDonald’s multiplied and sales skyrocketed, restaurant signs were regularly updated. By 1958, it was 100 million. By 1961, 500 million.
The 1 billion mark, reached in 1963, was a big deal, noted in neon signs in front of every McDonald’s restaurant. The supposed 1 billionth burger was served by Kroc himself on national TV.
For much of the ’60s, the signs just said, “Billions Served,” then went specific again when the 5 billion mark was hit in 1969. It was 10 billion in 1972, 25 billion in 1978, 50 billion in 1984. In the late 1980s, McDonald’s was regularly selling 5 billion hamburgers a year; to avoid frequent updates, the signs were frozen in 1986 to read, “More Than 60 Billion Served.”
Riker said these numbers were projections based on how much beef was shipped to each restaurant. It was counted by hamburger patty—so the Big Mac, which contains two patties, indeed counted as two. (It hit the market in 1968.)
Today, the signs are all frozen in a generic, “Billions and Billions Served” or “More Than 99 Billion Served.” Riker said McDonald’s hasn’t counted since 1994 (at least not for public information) and never will again.
Why not? Riker would only say that the company wanted to “focus on other things.” (He added that constant sign updates were also a pain.)
It’s easy to see why. The signs once highlighted McDonald’s strongest selling point: a comfortably unchallenging, unchanging menu. But today, it may read as quantity over quality, and Americans have become much more interested in food nutrition and variety.
In 1996, the Arch Deluxe “adult” burger flopped. A victorious 1994-1997 libel suit against British activists backfired when the judge blasted the company for marketing to children, underpaying employees and abetting animal cruelty.
While still profitable, the company cut nearly 25 percent of its headquarters staff in 1998, and a 1999 report indicates it now sells only about 1 billion burgers a year.
Oct. 4, 2001
By John Ruch
© 2001
Q: How many hamburgers has McDonald’s sold? How come they don’t put the number on their sign anymore? And do Big Macs count as two?
—Bifani
A: McDonald’s has probably sold more than 100 billion hamburgers in its 53 years. But an exact number is hard to come by. For one thing, those numbers on the signs were always just educated guesses.
And in 1994, McDonald’s “made a conscious decision to stop counting,” according to spokesperson Walt Riker.
Putting a running tally of hamburger sales on its storefront advertising was a publicity device that dated to the beginning of McDonald’s as we know it. The fast-food company started in 1948 as a California chain. Ray Kroc, the guy who sold the McDonald brothers their milkshake mixers, convinced them to franchise to him.
Kroc, who eventually bought out the brothers and became a corporate kingpin, opened his first McDonald’s franchise in 1955 in Des Plaines, Illinois. The restaurant featured a road sign that proudly announced, “1 Million Served” (1 million hamburgers, that is).
As McDonald’s multiplied and sales skyrocketed, restaurant signs were regularly updated. By 1958, it was 100 million. By 1961, 500 million.
The 1 billion mark, reached in 1963, was a big deal, noted in neon signs in front of every McDonald’s restaurant. The supposed 1 billionth burger was served by Kroc himself on national TV.
For much of the ’60s, the signs just said, “Billions Served,” then went specific again when the 5 billion mark was hit in 1969. It was 10 billion in 1972, 25 billion in 1978, 50 billion in 1984. In the late 1980s, McDonald’s was regularly selling 5 billion hamburgers a year; to avoid frequent updates, the signs were frozen in 1986 to read, “More Than 60 Billion Served.”
Riker said these numbers were projections based on how much beef was shipped to each restaurant. It was counted by hamburger patty—so the Big Mac, which contains two patties, indeed counted as two. (It hit the market in 1968.)
Today, the signs are all frozen in a generic, “Billions and Billions Served” or “More Than 99 Billion Served.” Riker said McDonald’s hasn’t counted since 1994 (at least not for public information) and never will again.
Why not? Riker would only say that the company wanted to “focus on other things.” (He added that constant sign updates were also a pain.)
It’s easy to see why. The signs once highlighted McDonald’s strongest selling point: a comfortably unchallenging, unchanging menu. But today, it may read as quantity over quality, and Americans have become much more interested in food nutrition and variety.
In 1996, the Arch Deluxe “adult” burger flopped. A victorious 1994-1997 libel suit against British activists backfired when the judge blasted the company for marketing to children, underpaying employees and abetting animal cruelty.
While still profitable, the company cut nearly 25 percent of its headquarters staff in 1998, and a 1999 report indicates it now sells only about 1 billion burgers a year.
March 27, 2008
Marshmallows
Stupid Question ™
Feb. 1, 2001
By John Ruch
© 2001
Q: What’s the origin of marshmallows, and why are they so flammable?
—Kelly “O”
A: The squishy confections we call marshmallows were originally made from the root of a plant called the marsh mallow (Althaea officinalis).
The mallow family of plants is large (it includes cotton) and is known for its slimy, edible roots and leaves. The common mallow has been eaten for millennia—its boiled leaves were enjoyed by the ancient Greeks, Romans and Chinese. It was also eaten in Britain from prehistoric times up to about 1600, when it was largely replaced by spinach (which is far less slimy).
Not surprisingly, the marsh mallow is a mallow that grows in marshy areas. It can be 3 to 5 feet high, with pale pink flowers, velvety leaves, disc-shaped fruit and a long, whitish-yellow root. It is native to Europe and Asia, and has been introduced in the US, where it grows in coastal marshes from New York to Louisiana.
While the marsh mallow’s leaves and fruit are also edible, most attention has been focused on its root. It contains a sugary slime that was the basis for the first marshmallows.
There is some evidence that ancient Egyptian royalty used marsh mallow root extract for either food or medicine. But the road to Girl Scout campfires began with the marsh mallow root’s use in early European medicine.
The Greeks and Roman ascribed curative and laxative properties to the root, and it continued to be a medicine well into medieval times. Meanwhile, sugar was also being used medicinally, and hard candy as we know it (sticks, lozenges and so forth) were invented as medicines combining sugar with herbal extracts—including marsh mallow.
By around 1600, candy had gained the status of a pleasure in and of itself. Fruit flavors pushed aside the charms of marsh mallow root. Sometime in the mid-1800s, French cooks pioneered the marshmallow confection we know today, combining the root extract with sugar and egg whites.
These first marshmallows were shaped by hand, and later put into ornate molds. The now-familiar cylindrical shape is a US innovation (Americans have always been crazy for marshmallows) from 1948, when manufacturers started squeezing the marshmallow goo through pipes.
Today, marshmallows contain no marsh mallow. The good stuff has been replaced by gelatin or gum arabic. They’re made by heating sugar syrup up to about 260 degrees, to a state in which it forms a solid ball, combining it with the gelatin or gum arabic and egg whites, they puffing it with air and dusting it with sugar.
That’s why marshmallows are so flammable: sugar melts and burns at relatively low temperatures, and marshmallows today are almost 100 percent sugar.
Feb. 1, 2001
By John Ruch
© 2001
Q: What’s the origin of marshmallows, and why are they so flammable?
—Kelly “O”
A: The squishy confections we call marshmallows were originally made from the root of a plant called the marsh mallow (Althaea officinalis).
The mallow family of plants is large (it includes cotton) and is known for its slimy, edible roots and leaves. The common mallow has been eaten for millennia—its boiled leaves were enjoyed by the ancient Greeks, Romans and Chinese. It was also eaten in Britain from prehistoric times up to about 1600, when it was largely replaced by spinach (which is far less slimy).
Not surprisingly, the marsh mallow is a mallow that grows in marshy areas. It can be 3 to 5 feet high, with pale pink flowers, velvety leaves, disc-shaped fruit and a long, whitish-yellow root. It is native to Europe and Asia, and has been introduced in the US, where it grows in coastal marshes from New York to Louisiana.
While the marsh mallow’s leaves and fruit are also edible, most attention has been focused on its root. It contains a sugary slime that was the basis for the first marshmallows.
There is some evidence that ancient Egyptian royalty used marsh mallow root extract for either food or medicine. But the road to Girl Scout campfires began with the marsh mallow root’s use in early European medicine.
The Greeks and Roman ascribed curative and laxative properties to the root, and it continued to be a medicine well into medieval times. Meanwhile, sugar was also being used medicinally, and hard candy as we know it (sticks, lozenges and so forth) were invented as medicines combining sugar with herbal extracts—including marsh mallow.
By around 1600, candy had gained the status of a pleasure in and of itself. Fruit flavors pushed aside the charms of marsh mallow root. Sometime in the mid-1800s, French cooks pioneered the marshmallow confection we know today, combining the root extract with sugar and egg whites.
These first marshmallows were shaped by hand, and later put into ornate molds. The now-familiar cylindrical shape is a US innovation (Americans have always been crazy for marshmallows) from 1948, when manufacturers started squeezing the marshmallow goo through pipes.
Today, marshmallows contain no marsh mallow. The good stuff has been replaced by gelatin or gum arabic. They’re made by heating sugar syrup up to about 260 degrees, to a state in which it forms a solid ball, combining it with the gelatin or gum arabic and egg whites, they puffing it with air and dusting it with sugar.
That’s why marshmallows are so flammable: sugar melts and burns at relatively low temperatures, and marshmallows today are almost 100 percent sugar.
Tomatoes As Poisonous
Stupid Question ™
Sept. 28, 2000
By John Ruch
© 2000
Q: Why were tomatoes once thought to be poisonous, and who the first person to eat one anyway?
—Sean Scheiderer
A: The idea that people lived in fear of an attack of killer tomatoes until some hero boldly gulped one down is 99 percent poppycock.
The unknown Mayan who first tried tomatoes had no such fear. Neither did the Aztec diners who followed, nor the Spanish Conquistadors who arrived in the 1520s and described the tomato as wholesome and yummy.
Neither did the Spaniards, Italians and French who started eating tomatoes as soon as the Conquistadors brought them back home.
There was no fear until the tomato came to northern Europe, especially in England and her colonies. Many factors influenced English suspicion of the tomato, but it all comes down to this: the tomato was a funny-tasting, bad-smelling foreign plant in a country that didn’t much like fruits and veggies in the first place.
In Spain and Italy, the tomato had been imported specifically as a food crop. But it came to England as a scientific specimen. Herbalist John Gerard grew England’s first tomatoes around 1590 and pronounced them not only “ranke and stinking” but “colde” as well.
Gerard declared the cold, wet berry unwholesome eating in northern countries.
With this bad news, and the fact that tomatoes were a pain to grow in England anyway, the plant was relegated to ornamental and medicinal use only. It wasn’t until the more cosmopolitan 1750s that tomatoes started to be eaten on a large scale.
Similarly, the southern colonies started eating tomatoes long before the northern ones. Tomatoes were growing in the Carolinas in the 1680s. It wasn’t until around 1820 that they caught on nationally.
It does appear that in some American cases, resistance was founded on the idea that tomatoes were “poisonous.” But what does “poisonous” mean?
Tomato leaves and stems are toxic—but only in large amounts.
Whatever the factors, they’re basically just excuses for the same old problem: a new food being introduced in an era of conservative eating habits.
The extent of belief in “poison” tomatoes has also been wildly exaggerated as an explanation for why the most popular fruit in the country went unused for so long. Tomato expert Andrew Smith has found only three “poison” references that date to before 1860.
Similarly, the hundreds of tales about some hero publicly eating tomatoes to prove they’re not poisonous are mythological bunk.
The best-known of these credits Robert Gibbon Johnson for eating tomatoes on the courthouse steps of Salem, New Jersey in 1820. The story is a fabrication.
In fact, it’s unknown whether Johnson ever ate a tomato in his life—but it’s certain someone did before him, since he himself owned an 1812 cookbook that contained a tomato recipe.
Sept. 28, 2000
By John Ruch
© 2000
Q: Why were tomatoes once thought to be poisonous, and who the first person to eat one anyway?
—Sean Scheiderer
A: The idea that people lived in fear of an attack of killer tomatoes until some hero boldly gulped one down is 99 percent poppycock.
The unknown Mayan who first tried tomatoes had no such fear. Neither did the Aztec diners who followed, nor the Spanish Conquistadors who arrived in the 1520s and described the tomato as wholesome and yummy.
Neither did the Spaniards, Italians and French who started eating tomatoes as soon as the Conquistadors brought them back home.
There was no fear until the tomato came to northern Europe, especially in England and her colonies. Many factors influenced English suspicion of the tomato, but it all comes down to this: the tomato was a funny-tasting, bad-smelling foreign plant in a country that didn’t much like fruits and veggies in the first place.
In Spain and Italy, the tomato had been imported specifically as a food crop. But it came to England as a scientific specimen. Herbalist John Gerard grew England’s first tomatoes around 1590 and pronounced them not only “ranke and stinking” but “colde” as well.
Gerard declared the cold, wet berry unwholesome eating in northern countries.
With this bad news, and the fact that tomatoes were a pain to grow in England anyway, the plant was relegated to ornamental and medicinal use only. It wasn’t until the more cosmopolitan 1750s that tomatoes started to be eaten on a large scale.
Similarly, the southern colonies started eating tomatoes long before the northern ones. Tomatoes were growing in the Carolinas in the 1680s. It wasn’t until around 1820 that they caught on nationally.
It does appear that in some American cases, resistance was founded on the idea that tomatoes were “poisonous.” But what does “poisonous” mean?
Tomato leaves and stems are toxic—but only in large amounts.
Whatever the factors, they’re basically just excuses for the same old problem: a new food being introduced in an era of conservative eating habits.
The extent of belief in “poison” tomatoes has also been wildly exaggerated as an explanation for why the most popular fruit in the country went unused for so long. Tomato expert Andrew Smith has found only three “poison” references that date to before 1860.
Similarly, the hundreds of tales about some hero publicly eating tomatoes to prove they’re not poisonous are mythological bunk.
The best-known of these credits Robert Gibbon Johnson for eating tomatoes on the courthouse steps of Salem, New Jersey in 1820. The story is a fabrication.
In fact, it’s unknown whether Johnson ever ate a tomato in his life—but it’s certain someone did before him, since he himself owned an 1812 cookbook that contained a tomato recipe.
Milk-Drinking
Stupid Question ™
April 20, 2000
By John Ruch
© 2000
Q: Why did humans start drinking cows’ milk?
—Anonymous
A: Probably the same reason you’re asking about it: Humans are nothing if not curious.
Humans have consumed the milk of nearly every large mammal, but the first daring sip was probably from a goat or sheep, which were domesticated at least 9,000 years ago.
Cattle were domesticated about 1,000 years later, but eventually produced more milk for the buck. The earliest evidence of cow-milking is 6,000-year-old artwork from Egypt and Mesopotamia (which depict cheese- and butter-making, so milking was already far along).
However, none of these animals were domesticated for milk. Goats were probably tamed to keep them from eating crops. Cattle were possibly tamed for sacrifice and as tokens of wealth; the Egyptians used milk as a sacrificial-ritual substance and a medicine long before they used it for food.
Milk is loaded with nutrients, and is highly portable in the form of cheese, yogurt and butter. But it became an important food only as populations moved from hunting and gathering to agriculture in less-fertile places.
Cows would turn dry grass into useful milk. (Meat farming came later, in good pastures.) And their milk helped provide the calcium missing from the cereal-based diet of early agriculture.
Thus, people in poor areas (northern Europe and central Africa and Asia) with a taste for milk would be healthier and reproduce more.
But first, they had to breed themselves into a freakish line of adult babies. If you’re a grown-up who can digest milk, you’re a genetic weirdo compared to most people on this planet.
Milk contains lactose, which is digested only after being broken down by the enzyme lactase. After infancy (or, in humans, sometime during childhood), mammals’ lactase production is genetically switched off, since they’re supposed to be done nursing. Without the lactase, lactose ferments in the gut, producing gas and diarrhea.
Genetic freaks whose lactase didn’t shut off were favored in groups that consumed dairy products, eventually evolving entire lines of lactose-tolerant adults. But the majority of humanity remains normal and lactose-intolerant.
While about 85 percent of American whites can drink milk without side effects, 70 percent of American blacks can’t.
Mediterranean, Asian and Native American populations are 75-100 percent lactose-intolerant, are as 90 percent of Africans.
Milk-drinking by modern, industrial-world adults is simply a cultural artifact and social custom that is nutritionally unnecessary. In fact, the high protein, fat and cholesterol content of milk can be problems in the US diet.
April 20, 2000
By John Ruch
© 2000
Q: Why did humans start drinking cows’ milk?
—Anonymous
A: Probably the same reason you’re asking about it: Humans are nothing if not curious.
Humans have consumed the milk of nearly every large mammal, but the first daring sip was probably from a goat or sheep, which were domesticated at least 9,000 years ago.
Cattle were domesticated about 1,000 years later, but eventually produced more milk for the buck. The earliest evidence of cow-milking is 6,000-year-old artwork from Egypt and Mesopotamia (which depict cheese- and butter-making, so milking was already far along).
However, none of these animals were domesticated for milk. Goats were probably tamed to keep them from eating crops. Cattle were possibly tamed for sacrifice and as tokens of wealth; the Egyptians used milk as a sacrificial-ritual substance and a medicine long before they used it for food.
Milk is loaded with nutrients, and is highly portable in the form of cheese, yogurt and butter. But it became an important food only as populations moved from hunting and gathering to agriculture in less-fertile places.
Cows would turn dry grass into useful milk. (Meat farming came later, in good pastures.) And their milk helped provide the calcium missing from the cereal-based diet of early agriculture.
Thus, people in poor areas (northern Europe and central Africa and Asia) with a taste for milk would be healthier and reproduce more.
But first, they had to breed themselves into a freakish line of adult babies. If you’re a grown-up who can digest milk, you’re a genetic weirdo compared to most people on this planet.
Milk contains lactose, which is digested only after being broken down by the enzyme lactase. After infancy (or, in humans, sometime during childhood), mammals’ lactase production is genetically switched off, since they’re supposed to be done nursing. Without the lactase, lactose ferments in the gut, producing gas and diarrhea.
Genetic freaks whose lactase didn’t shut off were favored in groups that consumed dairy products, eventually evolving entire lines of lactose-tolerant adults. But the majority of humanity remains normal and lactose-intolerant.
While about 85 percent of American whites can drink milk without side effects, 70 percent of American blacks can’t.
Mediterranean, Asian and Native American populations are 75-100 percent lactose-intolerant, are as 90 percent of Africans.
Milk-drinking by modern, industrial-world adults is simply a cultural artifact and social custom that is nutritionally unnecessary. In fact, the high protein, fat and cholesterol content of milk can be problems in the US diet.
Cheese Dyed Yellow
Stupid Question ™
Jan. 13, 2000
By John Ruch
© 2000
Q: Why is cheddar cheese dyed yellow in the US?
—Camille P. and Sang S.
A: There are three main commercial reasons for coloring food: 1) to fraudulently make food look fresher than it is; 2) to cover up a harmless natural but undesirable alteration in color; 3) to give a product a “normal” color consumers can recognize.
In the case of cheddar cheese, which is usually dyed anything from pastel yellow to bright orange, all three reasons apply.
Normal cheddar cheese is a pale yellowish-white. Grass contains the pigment beta-carotene; when cows eat the grass, the pigment goes into their fat, and thus into their milk. When cheese is made from the milk, the beta-carotene is concentrated and results in this color.
The color varies seasonally, since cows get more beta-carotene out of lush summer grass. Also, the color tends to deepen as the cheese ages, so a mature, summer-milk cheddar could have more of a golden hue.
Back in the 1600s, dairy farmers were more inclined to skim the cream off milk and turn it into butter, which was easier to make and sell than cheese. If they then made cheese with the skimmed milk, its very pale color would be a tip-off to low fat content (and thus low flavor).
So many farmers simply mixed saffron, marigold petals or carrot juice into their cheese—the resulting yellow-red color making it look richer, fatter and more mature than it was.
By 1900, the artificial coloring was sometimes dangerous, with mercury- or lead-based pigments being used. They were outlawed, and everybody started using annatto, a tropical plant that is still used by cheesemakers today.
Besides outright fraud, coloring was also used to cover up the natural seasonal variations in cheese color. That’s even more important today, when studies have shown consumers prefer uniformly-colored produce, believing it to be fresher. (Butter gets colored, too.)
Eventually, consumers not only got used to all cheddar being yellowish-orange, they expected it to be.
And that’s the main reason cheddar is dyed yellow-orange today. If it were any other color, consumers might not recognize it on the shelf, or might not want it if they did recognize it. (Similarly, around 1900 British milk was often colored yellow to cover both low quality and seasonal variations; consumers soon stopped buying even high-quality milk if it wasn’t dyed yellow.)
Nonetheless, the exact expected color of cheese varies regionally, sometimes for no obvious reason. (The Southern US supposedly prefers the brightest orange cheddar.) The British accept natural-color cheddar, seasonal variations and all, probably because there’s been a movement to preserve the traditional cheese farms around good ol’ Cheddar, England.
However, they have their own traditionally neon-orange cheeses, such as Gloucester and Leicester, which have been dosed with annatto for centuries.
Jan. 13, 2000
By John Ruch
© 2000
Q: Why is cheddar cheese dyed yellow in the US?
—Camille P. and Sang S.
A: There are three main commercial reasons for coloring food: 1) to fraudulently make food look fresher than it is; 2) to cover up a harmless natural but undesirable alteration in color; 3) to give a product a “normal” color consumers can recognize.
In the case of cheddar cheese, which is usually dyed anything from pastel yellow to bright orange, all three reasons apply.
Normal cheddar cheese is a pale yellowish-white. Grass contains the pigment beta-carotene; when cows eat the grass, the pigment goes into their fat, and thus into their milk. When cheese is made from the milk, the beta-carotene is concentrated and results in this color.
The color varies seasonally, since cows get more beta-carotene out of lush summer grass. Also, the color tends to deepen as the cheese ages, so a mature, summer-milk cheddar could have more of a golden hue.
Back in the 1600s, dairy farmers were more inclined to skim the cream off milk and turn it into butter, which was easier to make and sell than cheese. If they then made cheese with the skimmed milk, its very pale color would be a tip-off to low fat content (and thus low flavor).
So many farmers simply mixed saffron, marigold petals or carrot juice into their cheese—the resulting yellow-red color making it look richer, fatter and more mature than it was.
By 1900, the artificial coloring was sometimes dangerous, with mercury- or lead-based pigments being used. They were outlawed, and everybody started using annatto, a tropical plant that is still used by cheesemakers today.
Besides outright fraud, coloring was also used to cover up the natural seasonal variations in cheese color. That’s even more important today, when studies have shown consumers prefer uniformly-colored produce, believing it to be fresher. (Butter gets colored, too.)
Eventually, consumers not only got used to all cheddar being yellowish-orange, they expected it to be.
And that’s the main reason cheddar is dyed yellow-orange today. If it were any other color, consumers might not recognize it on the shelf, or might not want it if they did recognize it. (Similarly, around 1900 British milk was often colored yellow to cover both low quality and seasonal variations; consumers soon stopped buying even high-quality milk if it wasn’t dyed yellow.)
Nonetheless, the exact expected color of cheese varies regionally, sometimes for no obvious reason. (The Southern US supposedly prefers the brightest orange cheddar.) The British accept natural-color cheddar, seasonal variations and all, probably because there’s been a movement to preserve the traditional cheese farms around good ol’ Cheddar, England.
However, they have their own traditionally neon-orange cheeses, such as Gloucester and Leicester, which have been dosed with annatto for centuries.