Gearing up for World Milk Day this Friday (1 June), we’ve pulled together our favourite milk-related facts for this week’s round-up.

  1. Louis Pasteur developed pasteurisation for beer more than 20 years before he did it for milk
  2. Despite its creamy texture, milk is comprised of 85-95% water. The rest of its volume comes from nutritious vitamins, proteins, carbohydrates and fat
  3. There is more calcium in 1 cup of milk than there is in 16 cups of spinach. You would need to eat more than 48 cups of spinach to get the recommended daily intake of calcium
  4. Humans have not always been able to consume cow milk. The genetic change that enabled early Europeans to drink milk without getting sick has been mapped to dairying farmers who lived around 7,500 years ago in a region between the central Balkans and central Europe
  5. Fresh milk will stay fresher longer if you add a pinch of salt to every quarter gallon
  6. Elephant seals produce milk that is 61% fat for their pups, about the same as the clotted cream served with scones and jam. Cows milk, by comparison, has on average just 3.5% fat