Is it true that Asians are more lactose-intolerant per se? I know some never drink milk, or take any milk products like cheese. Even when they drink tea or coffee, it has to be without any milk. Some will also start having stomach problems once they drink milk, so the only alternative is soy milk.
When I was growing up, we hardly get to drink milk at home. We had full cream milk, but that was only to make Milo. We never drink full cream milk off the glass or powdered milk. Even though we are not lactose-intolerant, we are not in the habit of drinking milk since young.
When I watched television shows when I was younger, we saw milk coming in those glass or plastic bottles, delivered by a milkman and left outside the house. I thought how cool it would be to drink from those, instead of the packaged cartons we have.
So during the first trip to Sydney, I saw the milk which my aunt brought back, it was in a glass bottle. I drank up the whole bottle by pouring into a glass and drinking it all up. That was the first time I ever had a milk moustache!
When I was growing up, we hardly get to drink milk at home. We had full cream milk, but that was only to make Milo. We never drink full cream milk off the glass or powdered milk. Even though we are not lactose-intolerant, we are not in the habit of drinking milk since young.
When I watched television shows when I was younger, we saw milk coming in those glass or plastic bottles, delivered by a milkman and left outside the house. I thought how cool it would be to drink from those, instead of the packaged cartons we have.
So during the first trip to Sydney, I saw the milk which my aunt brought back, it was in a glass bottle. I drank up the whole bottle by pouring into a glass and drinking it all up. That was the first time I ever had a milk moustache!
Since then, I prefer to drink milk in a classy-looking transparent 250-ml glass, those glasses which are so common in commercials. But the glass I bought was broken by my grandmother, and since then, I have not been able to find the exact same one. :-(
When I was in primary school, there was a milk order service, where we had to pay S$2.50 (I think, cannot really remember the exact amount now) a month, and little triangular cartons of different flavoured milk would be supplied to our classrooms everyday for those who ordered.
I remember when I was in Primary One, I submitted the money late, so I got a refund. Nevertheless, being the ignorant and stubborn person, when the first batch of milk cartons came, I queued up for my milk. Because of that, a classmate who actually paid did not get to drink her milk, and I got scolded by the teacher due to this.
A few days later, the school assistant came up to my classroom and told my teacher to put me in for the milk order, so since then, I got to drink the milk together with the rest of my classmates who ordered.
The milk order service went all the way to Primary Six, and I ordered every month, every year without fail. There were plain full cream milk, banana milk, chocolate milk and strawberry milk, and each flavour would be rotated.
We could recognise the flavour by the colour of the design of the carton - pink for strawberry, brown for chocolate, light green for banana (perhaps yellow would be too light), and blue for the normal flavour.
So each time when the milk arrived, I would know the flavour just by looking at the colour. If I did not like the flavour (somehow I cannot bear the taste of strawberry milk, even now, although I like the rest), I would keep the milk in my bag and bring it home.
In lower primary, when I was still a young kid, I would keep the milk in my bag for ages. Until one day, there was a smell emitting from my bag, and to my horror, my teacher asked me to open my bag and she discovered the stale smell of strawberry milk. She made me throw away the milk and cleaned my bag thoroughly, before giving me a lecture on not keeping milk in my bag for long periods ever again!
Through the years, I no longer drink milk, except once in a blue moon when I would get soya bean milk or banana milk. But never full cream milk. The only times I come in contact with milk is when I am drinking tea or Milo, as I can never drink anything without sugar and milk (be it full cream, condensed, evaporated, creamer or powdered.) Or eating ice-cream.
I first came into contact with evaporated milk when I knew someone who absolutely insisted that making Milo without condensed milk was a big no-no, so I had to do it his way. But later I realised that condensed milk is a nice drink, especially if I mix it with water and drink it just like that.
As can be seen, I am definitely not a heavy consumption of milk or dairy products. (Chocolates are another story.) But milk itself is healthy and filling, otherwise babies will not be drinking so much milk. Perhaps if I had drank more milk when I was younger, I could then be healthier and smarter? Does that make a difference?
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