My reply to a post on Nestle’s coagulated tin milk

[This post is dedicated to my first paid subsciber on Substack, Yemi Adetunji. Thanks!]

[Note: reworked for republishing.]

As always, I begin with a Big Thank You to my paid subscribers. I am immensely grateful for your not only reading my articles but also for offering me your financial support!

As we say in Yoruba: Mó dúpẹ̀.

This one is from my archives. It was written during the days that I used to waste my time on Zuckerberg's Facebook.

A lady friend had written a post to complain about her experience with Nestle's Ghana. According to her story, she was not amused with the replies that she got when she complained to officials of Nestle about a tin milk she bought which has coagulated in the tin. She wrote that they dazzled her with biochem bugabuga which didn't answer her questions or concerns.

This was my reply to her.

Greetings to you.

If you happen to meet with them (Nestle's officials) again, tell them that the Dutch drink only FRESH milk - kept pasteurized and refrigerated. Their shelf-life lasted for only a few days.

No supermarket in The Netherlands sells milk in tins. None of them sell condensed milk. You can get them only in African shops! The reason is that the Dutch do not drink dried milk mixed with water and whatnot, which is what is sold to us in Africa.

The Dutch, ranked number two among the world’s milk producers, produce powdered milk only for exports.

Companies like Nestle bring it to Africa, add some water, and deploy their marketing people to gimmick it up like some healthy and highly nutritious miracle drink!

The reason why Milk is not exported to Africa in paper is because it will cost more money, and that will cut the profit margin. Remember that fresh must be pasteurized and refrigerated. The imported fresh milk is mostly for the expats who can afford it! Have you ever seen a European consuming our tin milk before? They don't and they wouldn't simply because they what they put inside it.

In the Netherlands, the excess milk that is not sold is turned into cheese, butter, etc, the rest is DRIED, packaged in sacks, and shipped to Africa.

Companies like Nestle hire white-jacketed people with degrees in biochemistry and suchlike to mix and put them in tins. The fanciful white jackets and the serious-laboratory-looking edifices are needed to create the illusion that it involves some high-grade chemistry, biochemistry, medicine, science, engineering, technology, etc. They only add water to the dried powdered milk.

The question here is why should we do in Africa even think that cow milk is good for an adult human, especially dried one?

Do we see cows drink milk from their mothers after they are weaned?

Apart from young animals that lost their mothers, do we see any other animals drink milk from another species?

Why should we even think that powdered milk, produced in Holland, transported across the oceans, housed for weeks or months in a warehouse, mixed with water in a factory, put in tins, and placed on shelves in hot African weather for days, weeks or months, or even years will have any nutritional value?

We certainly have a long way to go in educating ourselves on the type of things we put into our mouths, stomachs, and ultimately our bodies.

We can begin our interrogation by reading up on lactose intolerance, especially for Black people.

We can also check our mental faculties on why we refuse to see a link between what we eat and the debilitating diseases that afflict us today on an epidemic scale - HBP, diabetes, and stroke, from which our parents did not suffer on a large scale.

Stupid marketing gimmick… why should powered cow milk be in you?

©️Fẹmi Akọmọlafẹ

February 6, 2024

©️ Fẹ́mi Akọ́mọ‌láfẹ́
Farmer, Writer, Published Author, and Social Commentator

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Fẹmi Akọmọlafẹ