The Milk Revolution

[Razgovory]

I believe I just admitted that I didn't.

I figured that if I know it, so would everyone else.

Did you know it before Timmy posted an article on it though (this is a long way from being the first one he's posted about lactose intolerance?)

I know I was like Garbon a few years ago (and not entirely surprisingly since I'm British living in an area that until recently had few post WWII immigrants living in it) in that I didn't realise that lactose intolerance was the majority condition. I've got a feeling it was another of Tim's articles that disabused me of that notion.

Yeah, I did.  You guys act like it's some sort of obscure fact.

[sbr]

It is an obscure fact.

[KRonn]

I also didn't realize lactose intolerance was such a large issue. Some years ago I started having minor allergic reaction to many types of fruit and given some issues I've had for a while now, off and on, I'm wondering if I could have also developed some lactose intolerance.

[Camerus]

I'd never guess the levels of inability to handle lactose in the Hong Kong / Shenhen area were true, given how many people consume milk and other dairy here, whether it be at Starbucks, Pizza Hut or other venues....

[Capetan Mihali]

This is likely a base racist cliché, but has anybody else heard the line that "the [Japanese/Chinese] think that Westerners smell like butter"?  I wonder if our growing expatriate community has encountered that saying, here in the Occident or abroad...

[derspiess]

I haven't heard that, but I've heard (I think here) about Africans claiming that Americans smelled like sour milk.

[Ed Anger]

http://youtu.be/uQIKuKHJuiI

NSFW

[Jacob]

This is likely a base racist cliché, but has anybody else heard the line that "the [Japanese/Chinese] think that Westerners smell like butter"?  I wonder if our growing expatriate community has encountered that saying, here in the Occident or abroad...

Oh that's definitely the case - butter/ cheese/ sour milk. I don't think it's particularly racist inherently - I mean, I have definitely encountered people who to me carried the scent of particular foods/spices heavily used in their cuisine which I didn't eat myself; and I don't think picking up a scent is particularly racist. Applying it broadly or negatively, is, of course. And I've definitely heard the "some Westerners smell like sour milk" from Chinese.

On the dairy-side, my mother in-law picks up on dairy and reacts negatively quite strongly. If I've buttered some bread and essentially wiped the butter clean on the bread, and then use the same knife to get jam out of a jar she basically can't use that jam without retching due to the butter.

[The Brain]

It is an obscure fact.

Heeeeell no.

[derspiess]

Oh that's definitely the case - butter/ cheese/ sour milk. I don't think it's particularly racist inherently - I mean, I have definitely encountered people who to me carried the scent of particular foods/spices heavily used in their cuisine which I didn't eat myself; and I don't think picking up a scent is particularly racist. Applying it broadly or negatively, is, of course. And I've definitely heard the "some Westerners smell like sour milk" from Chinese.

I can see "broadly" being racist, but "negatively" is racist?  So you're a racist if someone smells bad?

[Capetan Mihali]

I meant the cliché that "Asians think white man smells like butter," which I don't think is necessarily racist either (hence my question), I've just only heard it from people who didn't have any first-hand experience of the topic and were repeating it as a truism.

[Viking]

I meant the cliché that "Asians think white man smells like butter," which I don't think is necessarily racist either (hence my question), I've just only heard it from people who didn't have any first-hand experience of the topic and were repeating it as a truism.

The cliché is that we smell like milk. Asians are aware that this is a cliché and the only time I heard it mentioned was when I found a new and strange smell and commented on it. It was the most polite way of saying "don't be racist" I have ever heard. Though, if it had been a dumped body slowly decomposing or some sort of poison in my food I don't know what the correct way of observing it had been.

[Admiral Yi]

I am more familiar with the cliche "stink like meat" than "smell like milk."

[Jacob]

Oh that's definitely the case - butter/ cheese/ sour milk. I don't think it's particularly racist inherently - I mean, I have definitely encountered people who to me carried the scent of particular foods/spices heavily used in their cuisine which I didn't eat myself; and I don't think picking up a scent is particularly racist. Applying it broadly or negatively, is, of course. And I've definitely heard the "some Westerners smell like sour milk" from Chinese.

I can see "broadly" being racist, but "negatively" is racist?  So you're a racist if someone smells bad?

"I'm not going to hire derspiess because he stinks like sour milk" - I'd consider that racist, because of the negative action, yes.

[LaCroix]

timmy = educating the world