Who Put Milk on Our Tables?

by Posted on

Did you know that, according to research published in *The Lancet*, two-thirds of the world’s population have some degree of lactose intolerance, developing symptoms such as bloating and diarrhoea after consuming milk?

Given this, why has milk become a daily drink enjoyed worldwide? And when did glasses of pure, tempting white milk first start making their way onto the dining tables of city dwellers across Europe and America?

● In a mid-20th-century advertisement for a milk packaging company titled *The New Story of Milk*, milk is depicted as a beverage consumed by all of humanity throughout history.

In truth, while dairy production boasts a long history, drinking fresh milk is entirely a “modern habit”. The Wellcome Collection in London recently curated an exhibition titled *Milk: Health, Politics and Power*. Through more than 100 exhibits, it traces how milk came to symbolise health and nutrition, and how political messaging and commercial interests aligned to drive its widespread adoption.

Each exhibit tells a story about milk. Directed at consumers and carers, these narratives have been shared with us, deliberately or otherwise, ultimately shaping public perception of milk.

● A poster from the first half of the 20th century strongly recommending milk for infants and young children. Image source: Wellcome Collection

I. From “Toxic” to “Pure”

From the 19th century onwards, the United States embarked on a rapid trajectory of urbanisation, with large numbers of people, including women, beginning to migrate from rural areas to the cities. Upon arriving in the cities, women were swiftly swept up in another historic tide: the professionalisation of women. This created a childcare dilemma: who would feed the children? Middle-class wives faced the same predicament. Although they were not expected to balance career and domestic life, in an era that prized large families, social convention demanded they devote time to hosting guests and managing the household, which naturally required them to find substitutes for breast milk.

Local brewers and dairy farmers spotted the commercial opportunity. They began feeding discarded brewery slops and wastewater to sickly dairy cows. According to a contemporary estimate by The New York Times, cows fed on swill produced between 5 and 25 quarts (4.7–23.6 litres) more milk daily than those fed on hay. This product became known as “swill milk”.

● Contemporary investigative articles featured illustrations depicting sickly cows crammed into dirty, cramped spaces. Source: Internet

When produced, swill milk had a strange colour and flavour. Producers would add chalk, eggs, flour, and plaster of Paris to mimic the texture of natural milk.

In 1907, The New York Times published an article stating that substandard milk caused the deaths of thousands of infants each year.

A similar situation unfolded in 19th-century London. At the time, milk preservation technology was still rudimentary. To meet the urban population’s demand for fresh milk, dairy cows were largely kept in shops lining city alleyways. Because the milk was drawn and sold on the premises, it was highly susceptible to contamination from dust and pathogens. Tuberculosis was frequently transmitted through milk, and the city’s exceptionally high infant mortality rate was also blamed on it.

● Cattle dealers in London alleyways in the 1820s, alongside the dust-proof milk cans introduced by dairy firms in the 19th century. The floral motifs on the cans hinted at milk’s association with nature and purity. Above: British Museum

It was not until 1912 that the UK’s agricultural authorities established the National Dairying Research Centre and introduced the Clean Milk Production Standards. At the same time, the dairy industry set out to modernise the sector by applying scientific principles of hygiene and efficiency. Through this process, the production, testing, and processing of milk became increasingly standardised and large-scale.

● The Clean Milk Production Standards set out regulations covering cattle health, farm siting, and cleaning procedures.
● Attire and equipment for dairy workers in the 20th century. White uniforms signified a scientific approach to working practices, while transparent glass bottles symbolised the cleanliness and purity of the milk.

As demand for milk continued to rise, the processing and distribution of dairy products gradually became concentrated in the hands of a few industry giants.

Take Express Dairy, founded in 1864, for example. The exhibition features an excerpt from a twenty-minute promotional film produced by the company in the 1950s. The film opens with a scene of a milkman in white delivering milk to a housewife in a white dress, before going on to showcase the group’s entire operation—from milk collection and testing to pasteurisation, bottling, and distribution. It was designed to restore consumer confidence in milk safety.

● A glimpse of Express Dairy’s 1954 promotional film. At the time, the company not only operated its own branded trains but also had dedicated railway milk tanks.

As the dairy industry underwent consolidation and modernisation, ‘cleanness’ emerged as a crucial concept, becoming inextricably linked to food safety. The ability to recognise and the means to afford safe, hygienic food came to represent a modern way of life and a marker of social standing. Consequently, the white middle class naturally became the archetypal consumers of milk.

● Left: A milk advertisement from the 1950s. The depiction of an affluent white family hints at the Eurocentrism prevalent in dietary culture at the time. Right: An advertisement from the mid-twentieth-century UK milk promotion campaign, which successfully made milk popular among lower-income white working-class families and young white-collar workers.

II. Milk and Nutrition

As early as the 1920s, the UK’s National Council for Public Welfare advised housewives to spend 27 per cent of their total food budget on milk, making it the largest single household expense. Over the following half-century, spurred by conflict and bolstered by scientific advances alongside government campaigns, milk firmly became synonymous with nutrition. Conscription during the Second World War laid bare widespread malnutrition among the British public, prompting scientists to examine the relationship between diet and disease. Owing to its rich combination of protein, carbohydrates, vitamins, and fats, milk gradually emerged during this period as the ideal foodstuff and a cornerstone of wartime rationing.

● Under the wartime rationing scheme, the weekly allowance for two adults included milk, sugar, bacon, cheese, butter, and chocolate, with seven pints (approximately 3.3 litres) of milk. Image source: Imperial War Museum

From the outset of wartime rationing, milk became a cornerstone of the UK’s welfare system. Beginning in 1940, the government supplied powdered milk to mothers and children, a practice that continued until it was replaced in 2006.

A glance at the dietary advice issued by the British government during the mid-twentieth century reveals that milk, the undisputed star food, was omnipresent. It was promoted as a vital source of energy and protection for adults, while being considered crucial for the physical development of children.

● Mid-20th-century dairy advertisements: the left image contrasts animals that drank milk with those that did not, intended to demonstrate the beverage’s remarkable benefits. The right image compares the walking postures of two young girls: the milk-drinker appears radiant with vigour, while her counterpart is so frail she can barely keep her feet together.

As personal health became inextricably linked to national prosperity, choosing nourishing foods like milk to build a robust constitution signified not only that you had embraced a modern way of life, but also that you were a responsible citizen.

Furthermore, opting for nutritious milk also indicated that you were a capable caregiver.

In the late nineteenth century, the rise of paediatrics and new childcare practices shaped by the ‘scientific feeding’ movement profoundly transformed every aspect of mothers’ lives. Body weight emerged as a crucial metric for assessing child development, and mothers’ milk came under strict scrutiny.

Contemporary experts maintained that the quality of breast milk varied considerably. Infant formula, marketed as a scientifically formulated product designed to replicate the nutritional profile of breast milk, was championed as the ideal substitute. It consequently replaced fresh milk, becoming a vital safeguard for children’s nutrition.

● Promotional materials for the infant formula brands Glaxo and Gerber.
During this period, advertisements for infant formula frequently featured charts of infant developmental stages adorned with brand logos, and at times even depicted an inverse relationship between formula sales and declining infant mortality rates… Ultimately, they all sought to demonstrate their product’s irreplaceable role in children’s “healthy growth.”

III. Is Milk Still a Perfect Food?

Upon leaving the exhibition, it becomes clear that milk’s pristine, nutritious, and progressive image is the carefully constructed result of various forces over the past century. Behind this lie not only commercial interests, but also political influence, media discourse, and the involvement of nutritional science. Having examined these layers, is milk still a perfect food?

In fact, controversies surrounding milk have grown in recent years. Nutritional studies show that many leafy greens, nuts, and tofu can provide adequate calcium, sometimes even exceeding milk in calcium content, meaning there is no need to rely solely on milk for calcium supplementation. Other research points out that excessive milk intake may actually lead to osteoporosis.

Others have also raised criticisms of the increasingly intensive and industrialised dairy sector from environmental and animal welfare standpoints. Inadequate management of livestock waste at intensive farms can cause environmental pollution, while high concentrations of ammonia and nitrogen threaten local biodiversity.

The production conditions behind the cheap milk sold in European and American supermarkets bear little resemblance to the verdant pastures pictured on the packaging; instead, they are the cramped enclosures of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs). As the documentary *Cow* depicts, dairy cows in these facilities exist solely to produce milk. Once their lives are worn out by relentless production, they are considered to have outlived their usefulness.

● The documentary *Cow* attempts to portray the harsh lives of dairy cows in industrialised farms from their own perspective. Image source: Official documentary website
Leaving the exhibition, I was curious about what all the steady stream of visitors took away from it? Will they realise that consumption is far more than just an individual choice? Will they start to consider the social and environmental impacts of their purchases? More specifically, will they care about where their milk comes from? At the very least, I have grown more certain in my own consumption habits: I will pay closer attention to where my milk originates. I will aim for products that are locally sourced, minimally processed, prioritise animal welfare, and are more environmentally friendly from production through to packaging. And as with any food, there is no need to blindly trust its nutritional claims or consume it in excess.

References
1. Harvey Levenstein, Fear of Food: A History of Why We Worry about What We Eat[M], University of Chicago Press, 20122. Alex Renton，Milk: A Local and Global History by Deborah Valenze – review, the Guardian, 2011-7-30

3. Linda Geddes, Everything you need to know about lactose intolerance, NewsScientist, 2015-7-23

4. Tyler Moss, The 19th-Century Swill Milk Scandal That Poisoned Infants With Whiskey Runoff, Atlas Obscura,2017-11-27

5. Catherine McNeur， Taming Manhattan: environmental battles in the antebellum city, Harvard University Press, 2014

6. Storhaug CL, Fosse SK, Fadnes LT. Country, regional, and global estimates for lactose malabsorption in adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet. Gastroenterology & Hepatology. 2017;2(10):738–746.

7. https://www.yfanefa.com/record/24288

8. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30909722/

9. Taming Manhattan: environmental battles in the antebellum city

Foodthink Contributor | Wanlin Lu
PhD candidate in Anthropology and Sociology at SOAS, University of London, with a Master’s in Food Anthropology. Research fellow at the SOAS Food Research Centre. Formerly worked with an agroecology social enterprise and a food technology venture fund. In her free time, she enjoys gardening and cooking.

 

 

 

 

Unless otherwise stated, all images in this article were taken by the author at the exhibition.

Editor: Zeen

Published by Foodthink