Talk:Milk

Split?

It's really weird that this article is a combination of the article on the concept of mammary gland secretion as a general mammalian biology subject, which is what it should be, but even more (content-wise) the article about human consumption of dairy products (primarily bovine but also caprid). Maybe we need a Milk (food) split off, or just merge the human consumption material into Dairy product. It's weird further that Milk (food) is a redlink.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  06:58, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

Agreed there needs to be several splits of the meaning for the multiple perspectives on Milk

Milk in the first instance is an opaque emulsion.

Secondarily for consumption as food or medicinal use.

The comnposition of milk, by what, its use and sources are tertiary. 2603:6080:8600:D7F1:F8C4:98E2:1B1A:1039 (talk) 10:14, 7 July 2025 (UTC)

Non-dairy items that use milk as an ingredient

Could we list items like mashed potatoes that use milk as an ingredient? MightyArms (talk) 18:02, 26 March 2024 (UTC)

no 69.31.24.5 (talk) 16:12, 13 February 2025 (UTC)

Change Title to 'Milk (mammals)'; add new generic page surmising all 'milked' produce

Current 'Milk' Wikipedia page is biased towards milk extracted from mammals. Etymology of 'milk' known to be the process of milking (or 'to milk') and not necessarily a term to specify the produce of milking mammals. There are many examples of milked produce. For example, milking vemon of a snake and spider. From insets are examples of cockroaches and ant pupae. Avian examples from pigeons, penguins and flamingos. Sea mammals, such as seals and sea lions. From vegetation are examples of seaweed and African milk tree.

From a botanical perspective, references of 'milk' from plant sources are at least a thousand years old . The origin of the use of 'milk' in all other contexts is 'unknown'.

Change would be consistent with providing audience with encyclopaedic overview of a subject, which then branches out to subtopics like 'Milk (Mammals)'. The current 'Milk' page is not a 'sum of all human knowledge', which is the purpose of wikipedia . Kisekiya (talk) 10:09, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Unrealistic proposals. We don't need another article. If you want to add information about insects just create a section near the bottom of this article. Psychologist Guy (talk) 14:46, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

I actually agree with the suggested name change, it would clarify. The other uses cannot be added to this one as it stands, as it explicitly mentions this is for mamallian milk at the very start.

"This article is about the fluid produced by the mammary glands of mammals. For the milk-like beverages derived from plants, see Plant milk. For other uses of the word, see Milk (disambiguation)." Sklabb (talk) 19:25, 14 April 2024 (UTC)

I support the proposal as there are many forms of non-mammal animal milk that are not covered by the current scope. Some amphibians, insects, and spiders produce milk to feed their young, including Siphonops annulatus, Toxeus magnus, and cockroaches, just to name the ones I know about. Alternatively, I would also support clearly delineating the scope of this article as all animal milk used for feeding offspring (not just mammals), but this would require a bit of reorganization. Nosferattus (talk) 05:31, 5 June 2024 (UTC)

Typo in table "Top ten cow milk producers in 2022"

The figure for Turkey is obviously wildly wrong. Looking at the original data source, it should be 19912135.38 but has been entered into the table as 1991213538 instead. 78.146.97.102 (talk) 23:03, 20 July 2025 (UTC)

Thank you. It's updated now. Sklabb (talk) 14:54, 23 July 2025 (UTC)

Nice. Thanks! 2.101.85.66 (talk) 17:06, 27 July 2025 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 9 October 2025

Template:Edit semi-protected In the 5th paragraph of the "In language and culture" section, the first sentence has the word "milksop" linked to a non-existent Wikipedia article for the word. It could be changed to be a link to the Wiktionary entry for the word, which is more practical. RobynTheGemini (talk) 20:36, 9 October 2025 (UTC)

Template:Not done: It's better to keep the link to the soft redirect to Wiktionary here. Day Creature (talk) 03:19, 10 October 2025 (UTC)