Love milk? You’re in a minority. Most people can’t even drink the stuff. Sixty per cent of the world’s population is lactose intolerant. As Mark Kurlansky points out, lactose intolerance “is the natural condition of most mammals . . . the aberrant condition is being able to drink milk”. The world’s milk drinkers “are mostly of European extraction”, descended from ancient societies that adopted a dairy culture. Most Africans are lactose intolerant (the cow-herding Masai tribe are a notable exception), as are most Chinese.
We’re all born with the capacity to digest milk — babies, obviously, are mad for it. Most humans from toddlerhood onwards lose that ability for sound evolutionary reasons. If you never stopped being able to drink milk your poor mother might
