The Evil Symbolism of Milk

➤ NEWSLETTER / ESSAYS

➤ PRODUCTION
written by Mina Le & Abbey Frank
edited by Charlee Reiff

➤ SOCIALS

➤ CONTACT

➤ SOURCES
Milk: A Local and Global History (2014) by Deborah Valenze
Spoiled: The Myth of Milk as Superfood (2023) by Anne Mendelson
Re-imagining Milk: Cultural and Biological Perspectives (2016) by Andrea S. Wiley
Milk and Melancholy by Kenneth Hayes (2008)

0:00 - intro
3:27 - milk as innocence
14:33 - milk as whiteness
23:05 - milk as poison
32:47 - conclusion

[sapphic.flower]

Now this, this is the hyper specific and niche type of content I need in my life.

[mauluccimeghan]

I don't know how you do it! I see the title and wonder how anyone could make a 35-minute video about that. And then suddenly I'm getting a lesson in history, culture, politics, art and cinema. Whenever I watch a Mina Le video I am so grateful that that was how I chose to spend my time. Thank Some of the best content on YouTube.

[sapphic.flower]

I remember in middle school, a girl said she doesn’t drink milk because she thinks it’s gross and I was like “what do you drink then?” And she was just like “…water?” And that’s how I learnt milk is not actually necessary for your life lol

[ktuck]

omg my partner's mom wrote Re-imagining Milk! so insane to see you use it as a source for this video :)

[chelseashurmantine]

That's kind of interesting that the missing children on milk cartons was before milk reached the CAFO level ownership. That independent dairy farmers were worried about these kids going missing and came up with an idea to find them. That's actually really amazing and not mentioned enough in dairy's history.

[MegaRobo]

15:30 Organic dairy farmer here. Milk is in fact white. Colostrum (the milk cows produce after calving) is bright yellow and very thick. Yes butterfat content can give a yellow hue but overall milk is white.

[ArtichokeHunter]

could be interesting to talk about how the milkman affair trope interfaces with the idea of milk as innocence. maybe it's using that quaint innocent setup to take advantage of trust and betray the husband figure

[gregorkulla]

in Estonia and many other EU countries I believe it's prohibited to call plant milk 'milk' because 'milk' is only dairy. oat 'milk' is called and can only be advertised as oat drink

[Sofianunes]

My theory is that the person who created this symbolism was a lactose I'm kidding ofc Lactose Intolerants are the first ones to drink milk or eat dairy food

[EmmaTheSwede]

As a Swedish person I always found it so weird in (foreign) tv shows and movies when an adult character is being mocked/hated on for enjoying milk, calling it disgusting. Here in Sweden it’s totally normal to drink milk with your meals as an adult (or in the middle of the night when you cant sleep 😂), and some meals basically can’t be had without it lol (iykyk). It’s so alien to hear people express disgust for milk when the worst I’ve ever heard from swedes is “eh, milk isn’t really my favourite drink 🤷‍♀️”

But as we say in Sweden: people’s tastes are like your behind; split 😂 To each their own ❤

[danicee]

Meanwhile in other countries, specifically in Asia, they have a lot of milk products including fruit-flavored milk and the negative symbolism doesn’t translate in their media, it’s regarded as a cute/aesthetic beverage.

[queseraphita]

this just brings to mind how many hoops my mom had to go through both in acquiring a doctor's note and PTA meetings in elementary school in order for me to get an orange juice or apple juice at school for a substitute since I had lactose intolerance but needed school lunches. It actually made all the other kids upset that I could get an orange juice when they were stuck with milk cartons and does make it bizarre how prevalent milk was in schools

[diannalove]

Um Mina have you forgotten the most egregious example of poisoned milk of all??? Have you forgotten about the 1970 film The Aristocats, where Edgar makes Creme de la Creme a la Edgar and uses it to roofie an entire family of cats?? Smh

[childofwonder.]

A style analysis of possession would be so awesome, i need to watch it so badly

[camhunts]

Even as a kid all the celebrity got milk ads were so confusing to me 😂

[nianolan]

Henry can probably do a line of coke without flinching 0:52

[pase]

One of the most interesting cases in relation to milk that I can remember, it's the case of the Radioactive Milk of 1987 that was bought by the Mexican government and then was used as a support for welfare to families. That cargo was directly coming from the Chernobyl accident. So that milk was literally, poisoned milk, but instead of normal poison. It gave the children who drank them Cancer. It's one of the most monstrous and controversial cases of public health service in the history of the country.

[rebeccamurphy]

Mina, I feel your anti-milk pain. When I was growing up, my family bought raw milk straight from the cow (so to speak). It came home in two big gallon jars that I do not think were ever sterilized based on my memory of the smell. When we got it home we had to skim the cream off the top which went into another jar, but I don't remember if we ever used the cream... Anyway, to make the milk more easily pourable it went into a tupperware pitcher and was served at every dinner. This concoction had bits of cream floating on top, still smelled like the barnyard, udder and that probably unsterilized glass gallon jug. Utterly gag worthy, as I cannot bear to have bits floating on beverages (such as orange juice pulp). I don't really remember if this continued until I got married and moved away, fewer memories of drinking the raw milk when I was in high school, but I've rarely ever voluntarily drank plain milk (happily pasteurized since then).

[MrNataren]

Mina's the only milk expert I'll listen to

[kat_tarr]

The irony being milk is made from blood. 30:00