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Comment by VladRussian2 | Hacker News Reader

there are different levels of security. "Thanks God, children aren't going to bed hungry (and thus probably survive next few days)" vs. "children going to bed after glass of good milk and cookie (and thus probably grow healthy)". Norway [successfully] invests its national wealth in maintaining the latter level. Looks very smart to me.

To be able to give them meaningful advice to do things differently (like, for example, importing), one has to show an example of a country which does things differently (and at least as successful in achieving the goal as Norway).

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http://chartsbin.com/view/1491

Apparently the Japanese consume 76.45 kg milk per year per person (as of 2007), while Norwegians consume 261.52 kg. Yet the Japanese have no problem living healthy, long lives.

South Korea gets by merrily with just 26.9 kg, roughly half of Palestine (49.17 kg). (Sure, our country has lots of social/health problems, but "not enough milk" is not one of them.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactase_persistence#Evolutionar...

"Where the C allele indicated lactase non-persistence and the T allele indicated lactase persistence, the study found that women that were homozygous for the C allele exhibited worse health than women with a C and a T allele and women with two T alleles. Women who were CC reported more hip and wrist fractures, more osteoporosis, and more cataracts than the other groups.[13] They also were on average 4–6 mm shorter than the other women, as well as slightly lighter in weight"

For colder, European climate, bigger weight/size is preferable (and bigger body requires stronger bones). Not so for warmer/Asian areas where smaller body size is ok and thus more favorable, in particular because it requires less animal protein, etc... which is less available there than in Europe.

According to Wikipedia, average January temperature of Oslo is −3 °C. That of Beijing is −3.7 °C. I wonder where you got the idea of "colder European" vs. "warm Asian" climate.

Besides, descendants of Scandinavian immigrants have no problem living quite comfortably in, say, Brazil. The genetic difference between different peoples is not large enough to justify treating milk as essential for some group of people but not for others. It's just a convenient and relatively cheap source of nutrition, that's all.

>I wonder where you got the idea of "colder European" vs. "warm Asian" climate.

No kidding. Oslo, annual average, 6.5C, Beijing : 12.5C. That's 59 latitude vs. 39, different Sun angle, longer days, etc... you know. And, btw, northern Chinese noticeably taller than south.

>The genetic difference between different peoples is not large enough to justify treating milk as essential for some group of people but not for others.

the study mentioned above explicitly describes the results of consuming milk vs. not consuming due to genetic difference. To me the difference is essential (grew in Russia). As result of evolution in Norway and overall Europe, people there also treat milk as essential.

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