The Story of Milk in China

[Randy W]

I still buy little 200 ml bottles of Half&Half strength from Zhuangnui with local distributors

 

from the SixthTone

 

 

 

How China Got Milk

 

In the span of 150 years, cow’s milk went from practically unheard of in most of China to a staple of a healthy diet.

 

 

http://image5.sixthtone.com/image/5/24/22

 

 

Milk surfacing as a go-to remedy in the country during a public health crisis shows just how far the beverage has come in the past century and a half. Nomadic groups in northern and northwestern China have consumed dairy products for thousands of years, but for the vast majority of the country, the habit was a side effect of the country’s subjugation by Western powers. Indeed, milk’s actual contents have often been overshadowed in China by geopolitical and nationalist concerns: Fortified by early 20th century theories of nutritional science, advocates promoted dairy as a means to strengthen the country’s body politic and restore its health.

Cow’s milk was first imported into coastal and central China by the Western merchants who trickled into the country after the First Opium War in the mid-19th century. In the southern port city of Guangzhou, Western merchants first tried shipping the drink from neighboring Macao, where the Portuguese had maintained a presence since the 16th century, and a few even tried raising their own cows in the city’s business district.

 

. . .

 

In bigger cities, like Shanghai, water buffalo milk was diluted, filtered, and steamed before consumption, though only desperate expatriates would touch it.

[amberjack1234]

The wife is getting humped backed now from lack of calcium. She has to take a medium amount of supplements every day now and she just got back from the dentist at the University of East Carolina and she is going to have surgery to save her jawbones from lack of calcium and gum disease and having her teeth straightened three times now. That ought to be fun to pay. And fun for her to endure. She brushes them three times a day but she does not do it like she has been instructed. I have been on her hind parts about it for 20 years with no results so now she will have to pay the price. She will have to have some flesh removed from the roof of her mouth and grafted onto the front of her teeth too. Never a dull moment with a Chinese woman.

 

She has another more serious problem that we can not talk about here that she is going to have to address sooner or later. My guess is it will be later and to late.

[Randy W]

Chinese milk is almost always sweetened and flavored for the kiddies.

 

It is usually sold ultra-pasturized in cardboard cartons at room temperature

[Greg.D.]

They had to go the ultra-pasteurized route because they didn't have a refrigerated supply chain. My in laws in western China are able to get giant crab legs so I guess they fixed that.

[Randy W]

eggs and milk. I think the U.S. is the only country that sells refrigerated eggs, while many countries sell ultra-pasteurized milk in unrefrigerated cartons.