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I saw that map some time ago together with the one here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence. However, after having lived in Southeast Asia for a while, I can attest that either the theory is quite wrong, or many many people drink milk with tea and coffee and then have a bad time in the bathroom daily.

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The amount of lactose that a person's gut has to process is significantly less if they're only adding it to tea or coffee rather than drinking pints of it every day.

But even so, I gather that people in Southern European countries like Italy don't generally tend to drink milk, apart from added to coffee, and even then only in the mornings.

https://mydearitalia.wordpress.com/2019/03/16/italian-cappuc...

I lived in Spain for most of my life, and plenty of people drink milk in various forms: by itself, with chocolate or other flavourings, with cereals, muesli, etc. Supermarkets have huge shelfs for many brands of milk, and they're sold mainly in 6-packs.

Spain is somewhere in the middle, with 30-35% of people being lactose-intolerant, making it a big market for lactose-free milk apparently.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9285380/ https://www.bordbia.ie/industry/news/food-alerts/lactose-fre...

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