Dear Lorie dreams,
I knew I had read about the reluctance of chinese people to consume ,cows products.
Made some more research and here is what ,I came up with:
Source of info-Wikipedia.We were both right.
MilkChinese in earlier dynasties evidently drank milk and ate dairy products, although not necessarily from cows, but perhaps koumiss (fermented mare's milk) or goat's milk. After the Tang dynasty there emerged a line dividing Asia into two groups, those who depend on milk products (India, Tibet, Central Asians) and those who reject those foods. Chinese depend on soy, as more efficient way of supporting density, and to differentiate themselves from border nomads. Most Chinese until recently have avoided milk, partly because pasturage for milk producers in a monsoon rice ecology is not economic, partly because milk products became negatively associated with horse riding, milk drinking nomadic tribes. There may even be a biological bias. A certain number of people in any ethnic group are lactose intolerant. In addition, human beings, like other mammals, after they are weaned, stop producing lactase enzymes (needed to digest milk) unless they drink milk. Lactose intolerance, then, is partly cultural, partly biological.[12]
But this non-dairy tradition has undergone some change as a result of changing perceptions and valuation of global influences. For example, it has been suggested that, in the early 20th century Shanghai, �Western food, and in particular identifiably nourishing items like milk, became a symbol of a neo-traditional Chinese notion of family.�[13]
loong
