How can you eat dairy if you lack the gene for digesting it? Fermented milk may be key, ancient Mongolian study suggests

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#2

Interesting article. However, what surprised me was that I have assumed that the importance of fermentation of milk in countless cultures has been recognized by scientists for a very long time. I remember reading a popular-level book back in the 1960’s [It had a catchy title like “Mushrooms, Molds, & Miracles”.] that basically made these same points. (Obviously, scientists know can investigate a lot more details in individual cultures.)

It is just not that difficult for herding cultures and farmers to discover the advantages of fermentation and microbes in general, such as with brewing beer, using yeast in bread, and cheese and yogurts from milk. Considering how microbes and countless spores are just about everywhere, we would expect it.

Hey, I just discovered that the paperback book I read in 1965 had another edition in 2007 and is still popular on Amazon!

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I wonder what the percentage of alcohol would have been in such a thin gruel.

I can certainly believe that beer preceded other uses of cereals. (Indeed, that was probably long before Captain Crunch earned his naval commission.)

I wonder what this new discovery about the world’s oldest brewery can tell us about the development of the ancient world’s first drinking game.

[Yeah, I’m in another strange mood today.]

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My assumption had been that cheese and yogurt were ways of preserving the food value of milk, in a era before refrigeration. I had not considered that it would be a way of making it more digestible.

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