Today I Realized I've Been Drinking Whole Milk Like An Idiot
I just realized I’ve been drinking whole milk like an idiot.
A few months ago my co-host Caleb and I went to a dairy farm for our Snapchat show. We saw the digs, tasted some dairy, even got to try to milk the cows ourselves. It was very phallic. Caleb was great at it, but I could barely get any milk from the cow. I rationalized that by telling myself he would just be better at giving hand jobs, so my inability to milk a cow actually meant I was more masculine and straighter.
At the end of our tour, we got to powwow with the milkmen as they finished their their shift. They had cow-shit caked half way up their legs and their gloves, arms and hands were coated with lactate runoff. It was the milky shrapnel of a hard day’s work. They looked legit. Their bodies were lean from their labor, and while I wouldn’t say I was jealous of these men’s shit-stompin’, udder-yankin’ jobs, I found myself looking to them for example.
As they started to talk about milk, I was mesmerized. They talked about how nutrient rich the milk was. I asked about organic milk. They said they didn’t trust anything that stayed on the shelf that long. Made sense. They dished out fun facts, like the mind-melter that milk comes out piping hot. Maybe I was naive to think milk was coming out as frosty as it’s served in the refrigerator aisle of your local grocery, but I was shocked nonetheless.
The moment that stuck with me the most was when I brought up skim milk. These farmers scoffed at me. They almost laughed me out of the barn. I was hot with embarrassment. They would never drink skimmed milk. They just skim all the nutrients off! What’s the point?? You might as well just drink water!!
Shamed, we shook their hands, bought some ice creams and chocolate milks, and rode off into the night. We had only spent a couple hours among the cow people, but their words stuck with me as we bumped along the back roads away from the farm.
What the fuck was I doing drinking skimmed milk my whole life? How was I stupid enough to put these almond milks and soy milks in my coffee? I was furious with myself. This is probably why I grew up with chicken legs, I told myself. I would have been athletic if I drank whole milk growing up. I would probably be in the NFL right now, a nice stout defensive tackle. With a lifetime of whole milks I imagined I would look like Beau Allen. Instead I’m built like a Tim Burton character. Fuck me and my whole non-whole milk existence.
In the ensuing months, I was sure not to leave the lesson in Michigan. I was committed to making myself whole. I rededicated myself to cereal, bathing it in the dense slick of whole milk. When drinking coffee, I eschewed the almond, soy, even the half and half. Give me whole and whole. I even thought about drinking an entire glass of straight up whole milk. I didn’t, because that’s gross, but I thought about it.
I had become a whole milk man. A full on cream boy. I had made a conscious decision to better my life and I was happy with it.
Until this morning.
As I reached for whole milk I caught a glimpse of my face in the coffee-shop window. Oh no. It was pudgy and puffy. Filled out and not in a healthy way. In an over milked way. I assed myself further. I had devolved into a milky, sloppy mess. I had been combating whatever shitty little workouts I was doing with a thick topcoat of milk fat. It was disgusting.
How had it come to this? I looked back and the advice of the milk men rang in my ears. This time, though, it didn’t ring triumphantly. I felt swindled. Of course these guys were going to push milk on me. They’re milk men! What are they going to tell me, that their purest product wasn’t incredible? They were Big Milk! They were a direct hand of Big Milk. The milk campaigns. “Milk does a body good.” “Got Milk?” The milk mustaches. It was all them. I had gotten caught up in their gypsy web of deceit. One again I was furious with myself. I was a mark, a faceless statistic who Big Milk could manipulate and mold like a pile of cow shit. They could turn me out and have me suckling off the udder if they wanted to.
Defeated and acutely aware of my gullibility, I swore back off whole milk. I’m never going to be Beau Allen. I’m not going to make the NFL. That’s a dream I have to give up. And whole milk is going with it.
P.S. Writing this blog made me realize how much I tweet about milk. A small sampling.
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