I can't even believe I'm joining this conversation; but OK:

Kathy Dettwyler wrote: "...no other mammal routinely drinks mammal milk after
weaning from its mother.  The vast majority of humans today do not drink
mammal milk after weaning from their mothers. Most people in the world today,
after mid-late childhood, do not produce the enzyme lactase, and therefore
cannot digest lactose.

Humans need their mother's milk til 2.5-7.0 years of age.  They do not need
cows' milk ever.  Cows certainly don't drink cows milk after weaning, do
they?  They eat grass."

I think we all agree that humans can survive just fine with no cows milk in
their diet -- no non-human milk at all, in fact.

The much narrower question we're disagreeing about, I think, has to do with
other-species' milk as an optional food for humans.  We're opportunistic,
we're omnivores, and unlike (AFAIK) other mammals, some of us have figured
out herding; so some of us drink milk.

So the question we're squabbling about (off topic, I'd say...) is:  among the
other optional foods out there for us, is this group a relatively beneficial
one or a relatively harmful one?

Some of us (maybe) think it's always beneficial; some others of us (but not
many) think it's always harmful .   But most of us think it's sometimes
beneficial (say, for folks who tolerate it well and don't have available many
other healthful sources of protein that please them) and sometimes harmful
(say, for folks who are allergic, LI, generally don't tolerate it well, or
otherwise have diets too high in protein or too low in iron).

Btw, as to the rhetorical point about what cows drink:  that other mammals
don't drink other-mammal milk  may speak to the (not very interesting)
question of whether it's necessary.  But we all already agree that it's not
*necessary,* right?    Even the folks who recommend it don't think it's
*necessary*.    And this point about what cows do or don't drink just doesn't
say much about the different question of whether cow's milk is an OK optional
element in a human diet, and for whom.    Cow's don't cook their grass; they
don't eat fish, even ones brimming with tasty Omega-3 fatty acids; they don't
enjoy steak at all, though I do.   Cows, how shall I say this delicately?
have multiple stomachs.   In short, as we so often point out to the formula
companies, what cows are meant to eat is not all that relevant to the
question of what people are meant to eat.

Elisheva
So why did I wait to post until I was so tired of the topic, eh?  people are
so dang contrary! people in this case meaning, me

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