I grew up poor as a kid and me and my brothers always dreamed of gobbling up all sorts of sugary snacks. One summer we got a hold of three cartons of vanilla ice cream and several 2 liter bottles of root beer. We had just heard about how to make root beer floats, so we made the biggest ones we could and gorged ourselves on it all in one sitting.
We got so sick and unwell hours later … we didn’t lose it through diarrhea or vomiting but our stomachs felt like someone had taken a basebat to us … we’re Indigenous so we were all lactose intolerant.
As a european that has limited knowledge about this, but is really curious, I want to ask: Are most true americans lactose intolerant or is it just something that runs in your family or tribe and is different for others?
around 65% of people are lactose intolerant, with the vast majority of them being of European descent.
Lactose intolerance is the norm. Most people outside of Europe (and colonized by Europe) are lactose intolerant. Y’all have superpowers as far as the rest of the world is concerned.
When I say that I’m lactose intolerant … it doesn’t mean that I can’t drink milk or eat milk products. It just makes it uncomfortable, it just makes me pass gas a lot more than others. Us native people get a big laugh out of it … as a kid, we used to have a contest as to who could produce the longest, loudest, smelliest farts (my brother won by a large margin with this and he was quite proud of it … sometimes we wondered if he was healthy or not judging by the gas he produced).
But on the other side of that, I can build a tolerance to lactose if I drink it enough and often. If I drink some milk every day, over time, I built a tolerance to it but if I stop for a while and then go back, then I’ll get lots of gas and then I have to build a tolerance again. In my 20s and 30s, I used to get it to the point where I could eat cheesecake, milk shakes, milk in my cereal and ice cream on a regular basis and never had a problem. Now I count my calories and watch my heart so I tend to stay away from milk and milk products for other reasons.
I grew up poor as a kid and me and my brothers always dreamed of gobbling up all sorts of sugary snacks. One summer we got a hold of three cartons of vanilla ice cream and several 2 liter bottles of root beer. We had just heard about how to make root beer floats, so we made the biggest ones we could and gorged ourselves on it all in one sitting.
We got so sick and unwell hours later … we didn’t lose it through diarrhea or vomiting but our stomachs felt like someone had taken a basebat to us … we’re Indigenous so we were all lactose intolerant.
I haven’t had a root beer float since.
As a european that has limited knowledge about this, but is really curious, I want to ask: Are most true americans lactose intolerant or is it just something that runs in your family or tribe and is different for others?
around 65% of people are lactose intolerant, with the vast majority of them being of European descent.
Lactose intolerance is the norm. Most people outside of Europe (and colonized by Europe) are lactose intolerant. Y’all have superpowers as far as the rest of the world is concerned.
When I say that I’m lactose intolerant … it doesn’t mean that I can’t drink milk or eat milk products. It just makes it uncomfortable, it just makes me pass gas a lot more than others. Us native people get a big laugh out of it … as a kid, we used to have a contest as to who could produce the longest, loudest, smelliest farts (my brother won by a large margin with this and he was quite proud of it … sometimes we wondered if he was healthy or not judging by the gas he produced).
But on the other side of that, I can build a tolerance to lactose if I drink it enough and often. If I drink some milk every day, over time, I built a tolerance to it but if I stop for a while and then go back, then I’ll get lots of gas and then I have to build a tolerance again. In my 20s and 30s, I used to get it to the point where I could eat cheesecake, milk shakes, milk in my cereal and ice cream on a regular basis and never had a problem. Now I count my calories and watch my heart so I tend to stay away from milk and milk products for other reasons.
Thank you. Very informative and interesting. I never knew you can build up a tolerance.Today I learned.
I mean, even if you weren’t lactose intolerant, I’d have expected much the same reaction.