If another species had the intelligence to obtain the milk from another animal, they might do it too. The fact is that humans are able to milk other animals and many humans are well nourished by cows' and goats' milk and their by products like cream, butter, ghee etc...

Also, as your question indicates, some animals do drink the milk of other animals in certain scenarios when the mother isn't around or if the mother was killed or whatever while the animal was still very young.

Maybe in 200 years there will be a certain food that many humans are nourished by that virtually nobody eats today in 2011. That doesn't necessarily make that future food a bad choice nutritionally. Vegans' 'argument' there is completely absurd. I won't even get into it.

the question for me: is there that much difference between eating an animal itself and consuming its 'body fluids'...?

No other species on earth drives cars, or can send racy text messages.... Just because others don't is not a reason for why we should not.

While ever popular with cats and dogs, sometimes it's easy to forget how much pigs love their milk and whey. I had no trouble finding an image of a monkey chugging a pint on Google. For scavengers like raccoons, bears, skunks and opossums whatever they find in the can is edible. Any animal would drink cow's milk. All they lack is opportunity and the skill to milk a cow.

Part 2. I have a problem with that statement too. If it is true I'd speculate that it was because they were nomadic scroungers, always on the move looking for anything that was edible.

why can we drink the milk of other animals which makes as much sense as eating the animal...shouldnt there be as many meat intolerant as dairy intolerant then?

Id say yes, definately other animals drink the milk of other species. And of course, they dont need to actually milk it.

All mammals produce milk, including grazing herbivores.

Grazing herbivores are food for hunting carnivores.

I cant see a carnivore turning its nose up at an energy and nutrient source that is an easy to ingest part of a kill, unless it was overtly poisonous. That may be what domestic cats like the stuff so much.

Also carnivorse frequently also eat the stomach, which contains whatever the animal has been eating, which also, like mothering animals, could contain milk (as would the baby animals body/metabolism).

Another mammal, frequently, and in larger quantities? Not that I can think of. But I am not sure why that is relevant to whether its optimal. Dont follow the logic of that argument.

What is that logic by the way?

1) Animals dont do it 2) Humans do

=

Its unhealthy.

We could reverse that logic, and conclude that eating horse manure is optimal, smelling each others rectums, or eating anything thats in front of you without consideration for its toxicity, or if u r currently sick. Or throwing up into your childrens mouths. Or eating grains, by chewing on stones. Or biting the heads off our mates.

It's bull**, like you said ants milk aphids for honeydew and some ants ferment leafs and eat that.

Nutrients from nature are natural.

Mammalian milk contains similar molecules between species with the primary molecule being lactose. The content of milk between species does have enough variance to make me avoid milk. Namely, casein. It is found in small amounts in human breast milk, consumed by human infants for perhaps 2 years max. After 5 years, our levels of the enzyme lactase begin to fall while the mother cannot produce sufficient milk after 5 years.

To me it seems plausible we are biologically wired to be exposed to only small amount of casein for a short amount of time and our biochemistry evolved in concert with this small, brief exposure to casein.

Here's where I worry.

Cow's milk contains much higher casein because they are a much larger mammal than humans.

Excessive casein in the body can lead to accumulation of metabolic wastes in the form of caseomorphins. These molecules have been observed and measured. Although we cannot determine conclusively what kind of genes they trigger on or off, I'm weary that they might turn on the wrong genes and turn off the right ones.

You can take your chance but I just think it's odd for a 36 year old man to be nursing on a teet. Nursing on the teet of another species at 36 (my age), makes it a far more daunting leap of faith for me.

Part of the conversation missing here is actually how bad pasteurized milk is, especially for young children and the ridiculous scale on which humans use this form of milk; can even be argued this might be a form of control since it is a very expensive process which leaves farmers at the hands of big produces. Governments make sure, regardless of the lengths farmers or a co-op can go to to make sure of the safety of their raw milk, it is totally illegal to sell raw milk for consumption. Even though I agree that milk is no really designed/ideal for adult humans it is just a pity we have been sold this garbage that raw milk is unsafe and given this diabolically poor product called pasteurized milk.

I will start eating dairy only when I find some unadulterated raw dairy products then I may experiment.

I don't think the fact other animals do it or not the point vegans are making, it's the fact the cow doesn't naturally produce milk throughout its whole life span. If I was to lockup a female make her pregnant then just take her baby off her so I could drink her milk then repeat the process over and over again until she does I'd be labelled a monster but its fine to do it to a cow. Who makes the norm and just because it is the norm does that make it right. I'm not saying I want to lock up some chick or anything but who are you to say that one creature is worth more then another.