Milk.
Cold, white and mostly water. Here’s what it is, why it’s great, where to buy it, and a shout-out to one of its biggest fans.
Click or tap any glass on this page to break it. The milk stays on the floor until you hit Bottoms up.
What milk is
Milk is the liquid mammals make to feed their young. Most of the milk people drink comes from cows, but goats, sheep, buffalo and camels are milked all over the world too.
It’s about seven-eighths water. Fat, protein and milk sugar make up the rest, spread through the water as droplets and clusters far too small to see.
Those tiny particles scatter every color of light about equally, so milk looks white instead of clear. Skim milk has most of the fat taken out, scatters less, and looks faintly blue.
Serving size1 glass (250 ml)
Calories150
| What's in it | By weight |
|---|---|
| Water | 87.8% |
| Lactose (milk sugar) | 4.8% |
| Fat | 3.4% |
| Protein | 3.3% |
| Casein | 2.6% |
| Whey | 0.7% |
| Minerals | 0.7% |
| Calcium, per glass | 300 mg |
Typical values for whole cow's milk. They vary with breed, season and feed.
Why milk is cool
Cows make loads of it
A typical dairy cow gives around 30 liters (about 8 gallons) a day. That’s roughly 120 glasses, every single day.
Half the fridge started as milk
Cheese, butter, yogurt, cream, kefir, ghee and ice cream are all milk that somebody kept working on.
Cheese begins with a clump
Milk protein floats around in tiny clusters called casein micelles. Add acid or rennet and they stick together into curds, the first step of every cheese.
People evolved to drink it
Most mammals stop digesting milk sugar once they’re weaned. About a third of adults still can, a trait that spread with dairy farming over the last 7,500 years.
Pasteur made it safe
In the 1860s Louis Pasteur showed that gentle heat kills the microbes that spoil drinks. Pasteurized milk keeps longer, and it stopped milk from spreading diseases like tuberculosis.
Every glass is a calcium hit
A 250 ml glass has about 300 mg of calcium, between a quarter and a third of what an adult needs in a day.
Where to buy milk
Pretty much every grocery store sells it. It’s usually against the back wall, so you walk past everything else on the way.
@_Milkylol
A huge shout-out to _Milkylol on Discord, the biggest milk fan we know. Go say hi, and tell them how many glasses you broke.