Adults Should Not Be Drinking Milk

Fact: Milk is for babies and children. If you are an adult—i.e., not a baby or child—you should not be drinking milk.

Look, I’m not a dairy dictator. I understand that, occasionally, adults might find themselves consuming milk. Cereal is inarguably better with milk than it is without it. I know that once a year you have to play Santa for your kids and keep the lie alive by drinking the milk and cookies that you left out for yourself. Sure. Fine. But milk as a daily or even quasi-frequent beverage? Nah, homie. I am a doctor educated by the School of Common Sense and the University of What Is Wrong With You. Let me help you see the light.

Point: No other species can digest milk after babyhood.

You’re not supposed to be doing this. Drinking milk as an adult is fucking weird and makes you feel like shit. Sixty percent of adults cannot properly digest milk. We are the freaky kid from your high school who kept wearing that long black trench coat even after Columbine of the Animal Kingdom.

Fewer than 40 percent of humans on earth can digest lactose post-childhood, and only 5 percent of Asians and 25 percent of African adults can properly digest milk. In case you’re keeping score at home, those continents have most of the humans we got. I know that as Americans we often like to shuck logic that’s employed by the rest of the world, but this is not something trivial like the metric system. This is about milk digestion. We need to get serious.

Your body does not want you to be ingesting milk as an adult. It very clearly tries to tell you this over and over by giving you diarrhea. But none of you goons will listen. Via USA Today:

Instead, people who are lactose intolerant can’t digest the main sugar —lactose— found in milk. In normal humans, the enzyme that does so —lactase— stops being produced when the person is between two and five years old. The undigested sugars end up in the colon, where they begin to ferment, producing gas that can cause cramping, bloating, nausea, flatulence and diarrhea.

Does diarrhea sound fun to you? Do you ENJOY that experience? For real, stop drinking milk.

Counterpoint: None

Point: Babies drink milk because they can’t digest anything else and they need to fatten up and get nutrition somehow.

Besides, it’s not like babies are drinking the cow’s milk you’re sucking down. We give milk to children because they are not fully formed human beings and their diets are 44 percent chicken nuggets.

The milk you’re drinking is high in calories and contains mad saturated fat. It would follow that most dairy products have tons of saturated fat. You know what all that fat does? IT GIVES YOU HEART DISEASE. You know what the number one killer of adults in America is? Goddamn heart disease. If you enjoy living, put the milk down.

You’re probably already eating other foods with a high saturated fat content like ice cream and cheese. Do you really want to waste your saturated fat consumption on something as stupid and lame as milk? At least get your priorities in order and eat something that makes the risk of heart disease worth it like an entire wheel of brie.

Further, people in Asian countries hardly consume any dairy. In the World Health Organization’s 2012 report, three of the top five life highest life expectancies were found in Asian countries. Consider the dots connected. (The secret immortality is not drinking milk.)

Counterpoint: None

Point: You can get calcium from plenty of other foods.

Ladies, I know Sally Fields tried to scare you with all that osteoporoses jibber jabber, but your bones aren’t going to shrivel into dust if you don’t drink milk or take prescription drugs. Leafy greens, beans, almonds, oranges—all of those foods are excellent sources of calcium. You know I know that you know you’re not eating enough vegetables anyway, so just eat some damn spinach and stop complaining.

Plus, we are living the year 2015—plenty of foods come fortified with calcium. Get with the winning team.

Counterpoint: None

Point: It’s gross.

Sure, we all used to poop our pants. Some of us hated taking baths. And there was probably a period of time where you thought alcohol was gross. But you grew up. You became a real person and it was time to let some things go. Let that glass of thick, cloudy water go. If you need something to wash down a sugary brownie or slice of cake, have a cup of black coffee like a grown ass person.

Counterpoint: None

I will now allow you to thank me for making your poops and your life better. Seriously, grown folks: stop drinking milk.