Milk

This hanging sculpture recalls the shape of a giant udder, stretched and sagging from the weight of carrying milk. Through her imagining of the maternal body, Bornefeld asks us to consider milk-giving from human and animal bodies as a practice of both care and extraction. The sculpture’s rough surface is made by mixing paint with coal dust, a material that is extracted from the earth and used to give energy.

These jugs, bottles, bags and cartons represent different milk containers used around the world. The inspiration for this artwork was the Peruvian ‘Vaso de Leche’ (Glass of Milk) campaign. This was a food subsidy programme set up by the government in 1983 to provide each school-aged child with a daily glass of milk. Welfare schemes have helped to make milk drinking central to many diets globally.

This promotional film was made by a milk packaging company. Single-use, disposable packaging helped milk become a widely available commercial product around the world. The film’s narration describes milk as “an integral part of the story of man”, suggesting milk drinking is ancient and universal. Evidence shows that historically many people, including Indigenous American, Southeast Asian, and some African communities, did not milk animals.

Cow-shaped creamer jugs were designed for serving milk with tea. Milk or cream is added through a hole in the cow’s back, then poured out through her mouth, with her tail sometimes acting as a handle. In Britain, the image of the contented cow who happily gives her milk appears frequently in popular culture and dairy adverts. Representations of cows reveal how we see and understand them.

Before refrigeration, milk could not travel long distances without spoiling. In 19th-century Britain, as urban populations grew, the demand for dairy milk increased. City cowkeepers supplied most of London’s milk. Many of them kept their cows in cramped, unsanitary cowsheds behind their shops. The milk was often contaminated with dirt and diseases.

This container held milk for sale in a UK dairy shop. The Dairy Outfit Company specialised in hygienic dairying equipment. The pan’s lid was designed to keep out dirt and flies. Its floral pattern shows how dairy companies used images from nature to promote milk as a ‘natural’ and safe food.

Contaminated milk was also a problem in the US in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The National Child Welfare Association lobbied US mothers to buy safer milk that had been pasteurised – a process of rapid heating and cooling that kills bacteria. Pasteurisation was slow to gain public acceptance, but by 1920 was common in most US states.

Public health measures improved infant mortality for middle-class families in the UK who could afford tuberculosis-tested or pasteurised milk. Those from lower income families, with disproportionately high numbers from racially minoritised communities, often replaced fresh cow’s milk with condensed milk that was longer-lasting and cheaper, but less nutritious.

The railways brought more milk into British cities using specially designed milk tank wagons and refrigeration. The British government formed the Empire Marketing Board in 1926 to encourage trade within its empire. At a time of increased poverty and unemployment, its propaganda posters showcased industrial innovations to make Britain appear a progressive, prosperous and powerful nation.

Dairy products have a varied and ancient global presence. 20th-century industrial processes of pasteurisation and refrigeration have been seen as essential to safe milk, but there are many other ways to preserve and trade milk safely. Methods like cheese-making don’t rely on purification processes. They work with milk’s material properties, collaborating with bacteria and fungi to enable milk to be stored and consumed throughout the year.

These illustrations depict bacteria in cow’s milk and butter. 19th-century scientific discoveries showed that germs transmitted in food could cause diseases. Milk is rich in nutrients that make it an excellent breeding ground for bacteria. The bacteria illustrated here can cause tuberculosis, a disease passed from infected cattle to humans through unpasteurised milk. In 1935, the UK government introduced tuberculosis testing of cattle. This was made compulsory in the 1950s.

In the 19th century, milk from cows grazing on grass in the spring was richer than milk produced in winter when feed was scarcer. Annatto was a yellow vegetable dye added to give milk a consistently creamy tone all year round. Today, processes of homogenisation evenly distribute the fat content in milk and are partly responsible for its whiteness. Cheesemakers still use annatto to give their products a yellow, orange or red colour.

Lactometers check the amount of water in milk by measuring its density. 19th-century sellers often watered milk down and then thickened it with flour or chalk. To combat this, the UK government passed a regulation in 1901 that defined “natural” milk as containing at least 3% fat. Milk today is a standardised, processed product. Unprocessed milk looks and tastes differently depending on the age of the cow’s calf and the cow’s breed and diet.

Breastfeeding was the safest method of infant feeding in the 19th century. Wet nurses – women who breastfeed another person’s child – offered an alternative for mothers unable or unwilling to breastfeed. As cleaner cow’s milk became available, wet nursing in Europe declined. This image shows French wet nurses preparing to return to their countryside homes with their assigned babies. Wet nursing was a paid occupation for these women. For others, it was enforced unpaid labour. Enslaved African women in Europe and the Americas were separated from their own children to wet nurse white infants.

This sketch was from the first Milk Marketing Board campaign. It used bold, dynamic design to change the public’s opinion of milk by associating it with a modern British lifestyle. Advertising agency W.S. Crawford created the campaign. William Crawford believed advertising could be used to ‘improve’ public taste and values.

In 1912 the Board of Agriculture established the National Institute for Research in Dairying (NIRD) at the University of Reading to apply scientific principles to the production of milk. Cleanliness  was central to the dairy industry’s modernisation. The NIRD educated dairy farmers on cow health, the location, construction and cleanliness of the cowshed, and dairy utensil hygiene.

The British Dairying Institute at the University of Reading was at the forefront of the government’s ‘Clean Milk Campaign’. Students were trained in the “science and practice of dairying”. This included chemistry and bacteriology as well as skills such as milking and cheesemaking. This Diploma in Dairying was awarded to Anne Hall, who went on to run classes to teach farmers clean milk production.

Early formalised education by the Royal Agricultural Society emphasised the importance of scientific principles. With the modernisation of the agricultural industry, many traditional farming methods were abandoned. The benefits of some of these are now being recognised. This includes a return to mixed farming, where soil health is improved by combining crop growing with livestock.

UK farmers supplied milk to the Milk Marketing Board or large commercial dairies, who collected it from the farm gate. This farmer was unable to arrange collection of the milk from his six cows and, receiving no response from the Milk Marketing Board, wrote to Lord Woolton, the Minister of Food, to ask for help. The Milk Marketing Board (1933-94) was a producer- run organisation that controlled milk production and guaranteed a minimum price for farmers.

Milk was tested for diseases, bacteria, and proportions of fat and protein. Milk that failed the tests could not be sold, meaning farmers lost income. Dartington Hall Estate in Devon was created  in the 20th century as a social experiment trialling  scientific farming methods. Its co-founder Leonard Elmhirst trained under Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore who established Palli Samgathana Vibhaga (the Institute of Rural Reconstruction) in India in 1922.

‘The Archers’ was first broadcast in 1951. It was originally produced with input from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to spread information to farmers and encourage increased agricultural productivity. In this extract from a 2015 episode, farmers weigh up the benefits and drawbacks of robotic milking machines. They discuss increased milk yield and decreased mastitis – a painful inflammation of the cow’s udder – as well as the lessening of direct contact with their cows.

The Museum of English Rural Life commissioned this painting to depict changes in English farming from the 1850s (right) to the 1950s (left). It shows a shift towards mechanisation and fewer farm labourers. Today dairy farmers rely heavily on migrant labour. From 2016 to 2021, 42% of UK dairy farms recruited workers from abroad, mostly from Poland and Latvia. The end of free movement following Brexit has worsened agricultural labour shortages.

In Christian beliefs, milk has symbolised spiritual as well as physical nourishment. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux was gifted divine grace through the Virgin Mary’s milk. As the saint knelt to pray before her statue, he received a squirt of milk from her breast, granting him wisdom and eloquence.

The representation of dairy milk as a ‘natural’ and ‘pure’ product in advertising campaigns draws on an association with breast milk. This 17th-century text describes mother’s milk as a life-giving fluid, nourishing and transmitting essential qualities to the child. The motto above the illustration translates as: “The earth is her/his nurse”. In European mythology and Christian religious imagery, a lactating woman often represents fertility, charity and abundance.

This promotional film shows the Express Dairy company at the forefront of dairy innovation. Their extensive facilities housed expensive, state-of-the-art equipment for inspecting, testing and processing large quantities of milk. They also had their own branded collection vans and railway tankers. As demand for milk grew, the processing and distribution of milk and dairy products became centralised in the hands of large dairy companies.

The UK dairy industry looked to the US’s success in increasing milk consumption through powerful advertising campaigns. These campaigns promoted daily rituals of milk drinking and associated them with a modern, North American lifestyle. Images of affluent, white families linked consumer aspiration with a European-derived diet. The underlining of “our” in this poster suggests a sense of shame for those who did not – or could not, for reasons of income or difficulties digesting lactose – conform to these supposed cultural norms.

Allflex 1990
Plastic, metal, rubber, electronic components
The Museum of English Rural Life, University of Reading, 2012/388/1-2, 88/6/1, 2022/86

By the 1940s pasteurisation was becoming widespread in the UK, but much milk was still sold raw. Dairy companies were keen to promote their products’ safety. Their messaging often conflated the ‘naturalness’ of milk with the manufactured purity offered by industrial processing.

In the 19th century, street vendors sold ice-cream in small, thick glasses. Customers would lick them clean and return them for reuse. Many vendors were migrants from Italy. An 1879 British medical report blamed the glasses and their “poisonous Italian ice- cream” for spreading cholera. In reality, a lack of washing facilities meant the glasses were hard to keep clean, but the association of migrants with disease and contamination was typical of this time. This idea continues to fuel racist anti-immigration rhetoric in Britain.

In 1955 the UK’s National Dairy Council began producing educational materials for classroom use. These included books for children learning to read. Images of cows in green fields create ideas of what dairy farming should look like that children carry into adulthood. Consumer expectations influence the choices dairy farmers make and how milk products are advertised.

Broodthaers shows how ‘objective’ scientific categories reflect the values of the individuals and institutions that create them. In these prints, breeds of cattle are laid out in a grid, with the names of cars underneath. From the 1800s on, farmers specifically bred and genetically engineered cattle for improved dairy production. Since 1975 the amount of milk produced per cow has increased 100%. The physical demands of high milk production have caused cow health problems which UK breeding programmes are now addressing.

“Drinka Pinta Milka Day” was a slogan from an influential advertising campaign which portrayed working-class families and young professionals enjoying their daily ‘pintas’. Claiming it made them “first class”, the campaign successfully raised milk consumption in lower-income households. Featuring exclusively white families, it began in the same year as the Notting Hill race riots. These were a series of violent attacks against the Caribbean population in the area, stemming from hostility towards much- needed migration to Britain after World War II.

This sculpture marks the separation of mother and child during weaning as both a time of grief and a new beginning. Interested in the long history of vessels as substitutes for the mother’s body, Keith-Roach created this sculpture the day after she stopped breastfeeding. The cast figures record the final traces of milk in her body. The fragmented forms suggest the dual nature of motherhood in which the body sustains both itself and another.

In this animation farmers from Northumberland reflect on industry shifts such as fluctuating milk prices, changing government legislation and the 1984 introduction of milk quotas in Europe. These quotas capped the amount of milk a farmer could sell every year. Many farmers juggle commercial decisions with the inherited responsibility of maintaining their family farm for future generations.

As milk’s production became more mechanised, adverts promoted it as a ‘natural’ product. They drew on romanticised perceptions of the British countryside as a place of simplicity and goodness.

A gleaner is a person who collects small amounts of grain or other produce missed by harvesters. Today, there are still gleaning networks that distribute surplus fruit and vegetables from UK farms to food banks and community kitchens. Around 16% of farm produce is wasted due to factors such as not being the right shape or size, or inaccurate forecasting by retailers of how much produce they will buy.

Recruits from the Women’s Land Army (WLA) learn to milk cows using rubber teats fitted to a canvas bag filled with water. The WLA replaced male farm workers during World War II. Historically, women undertook much of the laborious work on dairy farms.

Pucill’s film disrupts the sanitised image of milk by re-entangling it with the sensuality of the body that produces it – here represented by masses of dark, animated hair. Slithering across a neatly set table, finger-like tufts of hair poke and pierce the white tablecloth, upturning containers of milk, cream and butter whose contents seep into the encroaching strands.

Paediatrician Ronald MacKeith collected images of historical artworks depicting idealised scenes of breastfeeding to use for teaching purposes. Many portray Christian imagery of the Madonna and Child. He notes that Tintoretto’s painting The Origins of the Milky Way shows the draught (or let down) reflex in action “causing a spray of milk from the nipple”. European ideas about breastfeeding derive from images that associate motherhood with spiritual goodness and innocence.

These photographs were taken to illustrate how to hand-express breast milk. They were used in the 1951 book Infant Feeding and Feeding Difficulties by paediatricians Ronald MacKeith and Philip Rainsford Evans. The exclusive use of images of white bodies in teaching manuals made white, Northern European physiology and behaviour the norm for training medical students. This has led to biased clinical decision-making and extreme differences in maternal health outcomes.

Many British breastfeeding resources lack information about how breast and lactation conditions appear on non-white skin colours. Misdiagnosis of conditions such as mastitis can lead to pain and early stopping of breastfeeding. Maternal health professionals, such as doulas, are now making and sharing more inclusive resources. Crochet breast models reflecting a range of skin colours are used to teach hand expression and latching. Feeding aids support a variety of methods. These include a nursing supplementer, used to feed babies via a thin tube taped to the nipple or finger.

Formula companies published advice booklets for mothers on how to care for and feed their infant. They traded on breastfeeding imagery to promote the company’s products. Psychologists today are exploring how complex social and cultural messaging impacts on new mothers. The serene image and use of the word “happy” on this pamphlet contrast with the difficult, messy realities of infant feeding. This gap leaves many parents poorly prepared and can reinforce feelings of failure.

These 1930s government posters from the UK and USA present maternal and child welfare as public healthconcerns.Theircommandinglanguageimplies mothersneedtobetaughthowtoraisetheirchildren safely. Imagery such as the pristine white swan and blond child suggest these maternal health services primarily served white, middle-class women. They would have been inaccessible for many, whether physically or for reasons of race or class.

The 19th century saw a rise in products targeted at mothers, including specially designed feeding bottles. These were advertised as safe and hygienic, but this was not always the case. The long tubes of Alexandra feeding bottles were hard to clean. Accumulations of bacteria caused infant illness, lending them the name ‘murder bottles’.

As medical and commercial advice increasingly undermined British mothers’ practical experience and expertise, many sought reassurance in the measurements and data of science. Formula milk came with branded spoons that enabled mothers to record how much their babies drank.

Endorsement from the medical community encouraged parents to buy infant formula products. Formula companies supplied paediatricians with free samples and branded items such as weight cards to share with new mothers. These stressed the products’ success in producing healthy babies.

These scales were used by a health visitor on home visits to new mothers in the 1930s. The scale is calibrated for boys and inscribed “GIRLS ¼ TO ½ lb LESS”. The health visitor compared the baby’s weight with a standard for that age. Weight standards do not acknowledge differences that can stem from health conditions or socio-economic status. They also do not allow for variations in birth weight among different UK populations. Statistics show that Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean and Black African infants are more likely to have lower birth weights than white infants.

Formula companies distributed branded charts associating their products with ‘healthy’ growth. In the 1980s and 1990s, the NHS used charts based on data from British formula-fed babies. In 2009 they changed to World Health Organisation charts based on data from 8440 “healthy, non-deprived, breastfed children of mothers who did not smoke” in Brazil, Ghana, India, Norway, Oman and the USA. Some physicians and academics were concerned that formula-fed babies might be considered overweight when compared with the new standards.

The publications of child welfare reformer Dr Frederic Truby King became an authoritative source of childrearing advice in New Zealand, Australia and the UK. King believed in eugenics, the idea that society could be ‘improved’ through selective breeding. He promoted strict routines for feeding babies every four hours and claimed too much physical contact would spoil the child. These ideas have now been discredited.

This leaflet encourages mothers to attend the welfare centre, suggesting that without expert guidance they may be “ruining” their infants’ health. Motherhood is described as “a skilled job” that needs to be learnt. The illustrations convey this information as friendly advice from one mother to another. While welfare centres offered much useful support, the message that mothers could not successfully parent without a doctor’s help risked undermining their confidence.

Queer Nursing is an inclusive guide to nursing. It foregrounds the role of other parenting figures and friends in supporting nursing and sharing responsibility for childcare work. Subjects covered include milk-sharing networks, nursing in public, adoptive parenting and induced lactation for all gender identities. Burisch uses the term ‘nursing’ as an inclusive way to describe feeding with human milk.

The artist’s mother, sister and niece reflect on breastfeeding and the passing down of maternal knowledge. The soundtrack is based on a lullaby said to have been sung by an enslaved Black mother separated from her baby to wet nurse a white child. The title Let Down Reflex refers to the physical process of milk releasing within the breast. It also points to extreme failings within Black maternal healthcare. Black women are three times more likely to die in childbirth than white women in the US and four times more likely in the UK.

Cohill created this portrait of the Chocolate Milk Mommies peer support group in Alabama to celebrate Black breastfeeding. She presents the mothers as powerful goddesses. Black women in the US are over-represented in schemes distributing free formula and less likely to receive lactation support following birth. Policies that impact Black mothers’ ability to breastfeed originated in the practice of separating enslaved African women from their infants to work or wet nurse white children. This traumatic history has led to racial differences in breastfeeding rates and negative associations within some US Black communities.

Vitamins and minerals were discovered in food in the early 20th century by scientists searching for connections between diet and diseases. The new science of nutrition led the British government t o introduce guidelines for healthy eating. These divided foods into three essential functions – energy, protective and body building. Milk, butter and cheese featured across all three food groups. This new approach to eating constructed a singular idea of a ‘good’ diet and did not account for factors such as income or cultural preference.

The British government introduced food rationing in January 1940. World War II had led to national shortages, and rationing was intended to make sure everyone got their fair share. This photograph shows the amounts of milk, sugar, bacon, cheese, butter and chocolate received by two people per week in Britain. It includes 7 pints of milk. The Ministry of Food described milk as “an essential part of our war food policy”.

In Food and the People, nutrition expert Boyd Orr wrote that wartime rationing had improved public health in Britain by more evenly distributing food. He argued malnutrition was caused not by a lack of food, but by inequalities in society. Calling on the government to keep food prices low after the war, he proposed a World Food Board to control surplus and avoid shortages. The UK and USA rejected his proposal in 1947. Today UK food policy is fragmented across 16 different government departments. This affects what food is available and who gets to eat it.

The British Ministry of Information produced this educational film showing how the UK and USA manufactured, distributed and consumed food during World War II. The film reminds viewers of their duty to keep themselves healthy by eating well so the nation can remain strong. It suggests that the state in turn must provide its people with the means to keep healthy.

The dairy industry produced this educational poster series to promote milk’s health benefits. The first poster compares animals fed different amounts of milk in scientific studies, claiming that “milk made the difference”. The images of children suggest that having a white, athletic, slim body and characteristics such as height and energy indicate ‘good health’. The accompanying captions were produced as part of the poster series.

16. (a) These pigs are sisters, same age, same litter. They were the same size at weaning. Both ate unlimited corn, oats and barley. In addition, one pig had milk daily and grew large and strong and smooth haired. But the other little pig had none!

16. (b) These chickens are sisters, same age, same hatching. After hatching, both ate unlimited wheat, oats, corn and millet. In addition one chicken had milk daily and grew large and strong with good plumage. The other had no milk.

16.(c) The two puppies are brothers, same age, same litter. They were the same size at weaning. Both ate unlimited cooked cereal and bread, plus some meat. In addition one puppy had some milk daily and grew large and strong. The other had no milk.

7. Ronald at 14 has an athletic figure with his broad chest, straight legs and upright back. Good nutrition takes care of him and gives him stamina.

15. Linda and Doris go for a walk. Linda is full of vitality, watch her step it out. Doris is tired and somehow her feet won’t get along although she can’t tell why. But the answer is good nutrition makes all the difference.

‘Government cheese’ is processed cheese provided to US welfare recipients through food assistance programmes. It was made using surplus milk which the US government is required to buy from farmers. Food assistance schemes in the US contain disproportionately high numbers of low-income Black and Latine families (a term used to describe people of Latin American cultural or ethnic identity). People from these communities have a higher risk of serious health conditions associated with saturated fats. Government cheese has become a pop cultural icon. It features in lyrics by musicians such as Kendrick Lamar and Jay-Z who use it to refer to the experience of financial hardship in their youth.

Milk has been central to UK welfare schemes since wartime rationing. From 1940 the Welfare Food Scheme distributed National Dried Milk to mothers and young children, regardless of income. In 2006 the NHS’s Healthy Start Service replaced the scheme. It offers vouchers for specified food items, including milk, to people receiving income support. The practice of giving vouchers to buy specific foods – rather than money – controls access to food and denies choice to the recipients.

This Foreign Office memo offers surplus milk products from the UK government to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for distribution overseas. It calls it a contribution in kind and suggests “that there would naturally be some publicity about the offer”. Drying, condensing and canning processes had allowed Britain to export milk throughout its empire. In later decades, foreign aid donations often followed the same routes.

Oxfam’s Make Trade Fair campaign enlisted celebrities such as R.E.M. vocalist Michael Stipe to draw attention to the harmful dumping of surplus products including milk, wheat and coffee. North America, Europe, New Zealand and Australia have disposed of surplus milk through foreign aid programmes or exported it to low- and middle- income countries including Jamaica and Mali. This practice undercuts local farmers and creates a dependency on imported foods.

1977 saw the launch of an international consumer boycott against Nestlé which was aggressively marketing infant formula to mothers in countries including Nigeria, Kenya and Malaysia. Promoting formula over breastfeeding caused significant infant health problems. Many mothers could not afford the necessary quantities of formula, so their babies became malnourished. Limited access to clean water and sterilising equipment led to severe infections. This poster came with a list of ‘Ideas for Action’ to support the boycott.

The National Milk Publicity Council started the Milk- in-Schools scheme in the 1920s to increase sales and develop a taste for milk in young consumers. Adverts drew on scientific studies that claimed milk was essential to children’s growth, putting social pressure on families to pay for the scheme. It was later taken up by the British government.

Personal accounts of school milk reveal mixed feelings. Many resented being forced to drink milk when they did not like it or it made them ill. Some describe milk arriving frozen and melting it on the radiator, where it became warm and unpleasant. Despite this, there was public outcry when school milk was ended in secondary schools in 1968. This was followed in 1971 by the withdrawal of milk for children over seven by soon-to-be Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher. Critics argue school milk distracted from government policies that caused the poverty and malnutrition used to justify it.

This promotional postcard from the National Milk Publicity Council appears to illustrate the findings of a 1926 study into the benefits of milk, funded by the Medical Research Council. The study claimed milk made children grow taller and gain weight. It was conducted on white boys “from the slums” of London, living in a Dr Barnardo’s orphanage. The Medical Research Council requested the postcard be withdrawn because the image misrepresented the growth from different diets.

Child malnutrition is often the result of low income. Despite this, it is frequently attributed to poor mothering in politics and the media. British adverts promoted milk as good nutritional value for money, but it was more expensive than filling foods such as bread and potatoes.

The UK government used milk as a symbol of good childhood health. It drew on scientific studies claiming milk-drinking led to greater growth. Strong and healthy children were seen as essential to Britain’s future. This poster was produced at a time when Britain was losing power as territories from its empire were becoming independent countries.

This early US government nutritional guidance aimed to get people eating more vitamin-rich foods during wartime. The words “U.S. needs us strong” above the white family illustrated in the centre suggest a healthy diet is a patriotic duty. Milk and milk products have their own dedicated food group despite the fact that two thirds of the adult population worldwide have some difficulty digesting milk. In the US, Black, Asian, Latine and Indigenous communities experience this most commonly, highlighting a racial bias in the guidelines.

British and European colonisers introduced cattle breeds from Northern Europe. This educational film links higher milk consumption with colonial ideas of ’civilisation’ and prosperity. It recommends selective breeding to produce cows with ‘well-proportioned’ bodies capable of producing large quantities of milk. The eugenics movement also believed the human race could be ‘improved’ through selective breeding. These ideas were gaining significant support in the UK and US at this time. This film contains racist language.

This butter advert quotes US Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover (later a US President) saying,“The white race cannot survive without dairy products.” Hoover was a supporter of the eugenics movement which he saw as ‘improving’ the physical, mental and social health of the nation. Racist quotes such as this were used in dairy marketing in the 1920s and 1930s. They made connections between milk, physical development and the health of the ‘white race’. This pamphlet contains racist language.

In the 1940s the US National Dairy Council produced marketing materials for health education in schools that encouraged ‘correct’ social behaviour. This personal health checklist booklet, aimed at teenage girls, offers advice on topics such as social etiquette and dating.

The United States Department of Agriculture is responsible for both the national dietary guidelines and the success of the US dairy industry. This zine explores this conflict and highlights the powerful lobbying influence of the dairy industry on US nutritional policy. It also points to the impact of government-funded adverts such as the influential ‘Got Milk?’ campaign that featured a range of celebrities sporting milk moustaches. This campaign aimed to reach Black and Latine consumers by enlisting celebrities including Beyoncé, Serena and Venus Williams, and Sofia Vergara.

The National Food Reform Association promoted economical cooking at a time of widespread poverty. Aimed at workers, these recipes use cheese, beans and pulses as sources of protein instead of costlier meat. The Association saw vegetarian eating as a way to improve the individual’s moral wellbeing through avoiding excess and practising self-control.

In the UK, responsibility for the family’s health has largely fallen on women. This postcard is addressed “to housewives”. Issued by the National Milk Publicity Council, it offers advice on healthy eating. It recommends families allocate the largest proportion of their food budget, 27%, to milk. It also reminds readers that “Milk Recipes can be had from your Milkman”.

Published by the British Medical Association, this cookery booklet is an early example of UK dietary guidance. It used the new science of nutrition to create daily menus for three weeks. Many of the recipes included milk, such as macaroni cheese and baked milk pudding. The authors intended the amounts and types of foods to model ‘correct’ eating habits.

This public heath poster portrays breastfeeding as a mother’s patriotic ‘duty’. This idea stemmed from 18th century theories of European philosophers, moralists and physicians that breastfeeding infants would create healthy, loyal citizens, and build a strong nation.

Adverts and maternal health resources often represent the relationship between mother and child as harmonious and nurturing. Moore’s sculpture challenges this idea by casting motherhood as a power struggle, in which the ravenous child attempts to devour its mother’s breast.

The temperance movement promoted milk as an alternative to alcohol. It believed a balanced diet could prevent excessive or ‘immoral’ behaviour. The trunk of the tree in this print contains the words “HEALTH, Strength of Body”, suggesting that physical health supports moral habits including “Prayer”, “Honesty” and “Good Sense”. The conflation of good health with good character led reformers to use food as a way to ‘improve’ society.

Starting the day Donald Trump was inaugurated as US President, Turner invited the public to respond to the words “He Will Not Divide Us” via a live-streaming camera. In this footage, North American neo-Nazis drink milk while chanting antisemitic and racist slogans. They draw on a racist association between consuming dairy products and the ‘success’ of the white race, connecting strength, masculinity and ‘purity’ with milk-drinking. This film contains racist and antisemitic language.

Patel explores ideas of displacement, prejudice and dual heritage through the process of making a cup of tea. Using the familiar format of a YouTube cooking show, Patel and his co-host add white ingredients – milk and sugar – into the brown tea in order to ‘improve’ it. Tea has been appropriated as a symbol of Britishness in ways that hide both its origins in China and the extractive colonial policies that enabled tea drinking to become widespread in Britain.

British colonial authorities issued this poster to farmers in East Africa. It promotes British farming practices as the key to successful grazing. Colonial authorities dismissed indigenous dairying techniques as ‘unclean’ and unprofitable. They used agricultural reform to impose white British values and systems and to justify the taking and enclosing of land traditionally used by pastoral communities to graze their cattle. They ignored existing knowledge about the role cattle play in maintaining local ecosystems through grazing.

This football is made from plastic milk bags from Mama Dairy (Sebeta Agro-Industry) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The cows on the packaging are Holstein- Friesians. European cattle breeders who prized their ability to produce large amounts of milk introduced them to many African countries in the colonial era. Today, they are the most widespread cattle breed in the world. Their frequent appearance in global dairy marketing demonstrates how the most visible narrative of milk is a European one.

Mursik is a thick, sour milk drink that is popular across Kenya and traditionally associated with pastoral Kalenjin communities. Milk is boiled and transferred to a charcoal-lined gourd. The milk ferments and can be stored for up to a month. The charcoal is antimicrobial and gives the milk a greyish colour as well as a distinctive taste. Making mursik is a mobile, low-cost and sustainable alternative to pasteurisation. Global dairy regulators have historically misunderstood and under-valued these technologies.

The starting point for White is a 1930s collectible card shown nearby depicting dairy farming on the plains surrounding Mount Taranaki in New Zealand. British colonial settlers brought dairy farming to this area in the early 19th century. Today, the Taranaki region is a centre for dairy science. Dean’s animation leads us through the indigenous plants of the Taranaki forest. This ecosystem was threatened by intensive forest clearing to create pastures for dairy cattle. White examines how colonisers disregarded and attempted to erase indigenous and local Māori knowledge crucial to the healthy maintenance of the land and the food and medicinal systems it supported.

‘Milk Report’ records the 720 hours and seven minutes Young spent breastfeeding her child in the six months after giving birth. When she sells all 720 copies, Young will have earnt £5,911. This equates to earning the 2019 National Living Wage of £8.21 per hour for the work undertaken. An accompanying text explores the economics of childcare and feeding, and the invisibility of reproductive labour.

In 1987, the Palestinian community of Beit Sahour in the West Bank bought 18 cows. As an act of resistance to the occupying Israeli state, they started a cooperative dairy farm rather than rely on milk from Israeli dairies. The intifada (uprising) milk signalled the community’s self-sufficiency and desire for independence. Today, the global food sovereignty movement campaigns for a food system in which communities rather than governments and corporations have control over producing, trading and consuming food.

This zine contains instructions for making oat milk at home. It looks at the environmental impact of lifestyle choices and highlights the difficulties of ethical consumption within a capitalist system. The artist highlights how the higher price of commercially produced plant milk risks framing environmentalism as something only for the wealthy. Zines are self-published booklets typically produced in small batches. As they do not need a publishing house to approve them, they can surface and circulate information outside of mainstream media channels.

The price of milk has risen sharply in the last year, alongside other food essentials. Food bank use is at an all-time high. Black British and South Asian communities are over twice as likely to live in poverty as white communities. The Changing Realities project documents life on a low income and pushes for change, highlighting and correcting the absence of those experiencing poverty in policy- making discussions.

For cows to produce milk, they need to give birth to a calf. Dairy calves are weaned early from their mothers to prevent them from taking her milk, saving it for human consumption. Historically, farmers used homemade muzzles. Today, most farms physically separate the calf and mother. Some dairies keep the calf with its mother until it is old enough to wean naturally. Known as ‘calf at foot’, this reduces the milk available to be sold by around 20%, meaning consumers would need to be willing to pay a higher price for milk produced this way.

Over the last 25 years, the UK dairy industry has changed significantly. The number of dairy farms has decreased from 35,700 to just under 8,000. Milk production has risen but there has been a 28% reduction in the number of dairy cows. This film offers an insight into three dairy farms operating in the South-West of England today. The farmers reflect on dairy farming’s role in creating sustainable food systems and the growing disconnect between how food is produced and consumer knowledge.

Left screen: Cooperatively-owned Community Supported Agriculture scheme, Gloucestershire
Acres farmed: 100 (rented)
Cows milked: 15
Calves separated: after 6 weeks, nursing daily with mother until 3 months old
Pasture and housing: cows in the field all year round
Average yield per cow: 2,700 litres/year
Average output per day: 150 litres
Sales model: direct sales, on subscription
Products: liquid milk (raw) – £2.75/litre; yoghurt – £4.75/750ml; kefir – £3.30/300ml

Middle Screen: Family-owned farm, Wiltshire
Acres farmed: 600 (100 owned, 500 rented)
Cows milked: 180
Calves separated: after 2 days Pasture and housing: cows indoors from November to March
Average yield per cow: 7,500 litres/year
Average output per day: 6,000 litres
Sales model: selling to a milk Co-operative
Products: liquid milk – 49p/litre

Right Screen: Family-owned farm, Dorset Acres farmed: 3,100 (800 owned, 2,300 rented)
Cows milked: 1,800
Calves separated: after 2 hours
Pasture and housing: cows indoors all year round
Average yield per cow: 11,250 litres/year
Average output per day: 55,000 litres
Sales model: selling to a milk Co-operative
Products: liquid milk – 47p/litre

Sherrill Elizabeth Tekatsitsiakwa “Katsi” Cook is a member of the Wolf Clan of the Mohawk Tribe and a Kanienkehaka midwife. She initiated the Akwesasne Mother’s Milk Project in 1981 to monitor and document levels of industrial pollutants in the breast milk of Mohawk mothers living near the St. Lawrence River in North America or Kaniatarowan’neh (“Big River”) as it is known in Mohawk. This initial project grew into a decade-long community-based participatory research project. Corporations disproportionately dispose of hazardous waste in racially minoritised communities, constituting a form of environmental racism.

The Milk Tea Alliance (MTA) is an online human rights movement. It began in 2020 as a response to Chinese nationalism by an online community of people in Thailand, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The colours of the flag represent the different milk teas found in these regions. The use of milk is a legacy of British colonialism (in Hong Kong) or trade connections (in Thailand and Taiwan). The MTA uses these milk tea drinks to differentiate their regions from China, where people primarily drink tea without milk. In 2021 Twitter launched a new emoji for the Milk Tea Alliance, a white cup set against the three shades of the flag.

This installation is part of a long-standing body of collaborative work interrogating milk’s networks of exploitation and care. Human and non-human milk’s multiple technological forms as liquid, solid, powder and foam are expressed through different media. These include the liquid crystal of the screen, digital animation, ceramic clay, language and lactones, which create the aroma of dairy products such as cream or milk powders. The ceramic sculptures draw on milk’s molecular formations, its poured, moulded and bodily forms, and the vessels that have contained it across time and place. The book invites us to create our own journey of exploration through this spiralling and far-reaching substance.

In this installation, artist Jess Dobkin asks us to consider the regulation, politics and ethics of human milk in the 21st century. While it has been distributed through hospital milk banks for some time, sales of human milk have recently proliferated online. Alongside new parents, consumers include bodybuilders, alternative health enthusiasts, fetishists and others. Excerpts from conversations with Dobkin and her research collaborators are heard throughout the installation, where they share perspectives and exchange knowledge. We encounter objects and materials conjured through Dobkin’s creative process as we are invited into an unruly archive of milk, labour and value.

Producer: Clayton Lee
Design Collaborator: Dany Lyne
Sound Designer: Dan Dobson
Design Consultant: Sherri Hay
Graphic Designer: Lisa Kiss Design
Nipple Tassel Designer: Alex Tigchelaar as Sasha Van Bon Bon
Creative Research Group: Hurmat Ain, Angelina Campigotto, Jess Dobkin, Taja Lindley, Charity Mwebaze, melissandre varin
Interviewees: Naisargi N Davé, Carolyn Prouse
Additional Assistance: Hurmat Ain, Angelina Campigotto, Sky Dobkin
Special Thanks: Hemispheric Encounters and Moe Angelos, Emelie Chhangur, Jesse Garrison, Josh Greenhut, Trey Gilmore, Laura Levin, Susan Rich