As I was slurping up the leftover milk in my cereal bowl, a thought came to mind. It wasn’t anything particularly profound or thought provoking but staring at the bottom of a bowl, I thought about how milk comes from lactating women and cows. I hope it didn’t offend anyone that I included women and cows in the same sentence. They were simply the first two things I thought of that gave milk.

During the last few gulps of milk it occurred to me that the idea of drinking the liquid that flows from the udders of a cow does not seem very logical. If I saw a large animal chewing on regurgitated food, my first thought would not involve drinking liquid from its underside. Did the first person to drink cow’s milk just walk up to a cow and start sucking? “Hey, I’m really thirsty and this here cow sure looks like it wants me to drink from its teats.” It seems odd that what has become a perfectly normal beverage comes from cows. Fruit juices, water and even soda make perfect sense to me, but milk’s origin I find quite peculiar.

I’m reminded of a story I heard once. A man was visiting a farm and decided to get some fresh milk from a cow grazing in the pasture. He walked back to the house with his thirst quenched, wiping white liquid from his face. Upon arriving at the house he saw the farmer and commented on how convenient it was to get milk when living on a farm. The farmer was puzzled and looked back at the pasture the man had been in. “Son, there aren’t any cows in that field, only bulls.”