Essay: I Am an Adult Who Drinks Milk

Milk drinkers above a certain age have a stigma to fight, even in the Dairy State.

CLICK HERE FOR MORE FROM OUR HOW TO WISCONSIN FEATURE

My dad doesn’t drink. When “normal Wisconsinites” are sipping beer or cocktails, he’ll have cola or milk.

While I will partake in a beer or cocktail, it is like father, like son in this respect: I am an adult who drinks milk on a near-daily basis.

Humans were never supposed to drink milk after being weaned from nursing. We’ve evolved this ability over the past 10 or so millenia because cattle’s highly nutritious milk was often less poisonous than whatever water source was available. In that context, it’s today’s lactose-intolerant outliers who are, maybe, more natural.


 

Submit your projects for our annual Home & Design Awards!


But even now, at the ripe age of 25 and with modern-day water purification technology, I still drink milk. I just wish I could order it at restaurants without drawing quizzical looks from waitstaff or baristas, as though only children should partake of its cold creaminess.

Call me a dairy hippie, but I’m willing to fight that stigma, and the Dairy State is the perfect place to start the adult milk revolution. Next time you’re out to eat and see a grown-ass man at the table over with a porterhouse and a milk mustache, it might just be me.


This story is part of Milwaukee Magazine‘s March issue.

Find it on newsstands or buy a copy at milwaukeemag.com/shop

Be the first to get every new issue. Subscribe.

Adam is a journalist who recently returned to his Wisconsin home after graduating from Drake University in December 2017. He interned with MilMag in the summer of 2015 and has been a continual contributor ever since. Follow him on social media @Could_Be_Rogan