Men age like wine, women age like milk

I came across this saying, which looks like yet another attempt to degrade women. Hey, guess what?! I agree. Yes, this is one hundred percent true. You can’t believe what I am saying? Do allow me to elaborate.

Wine is made from fermented grape juice. Sure, there are some health benefits of drinking wine. Due to it’s antioxidant characteristics, drinking in moderation can help with cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, certain types of cancer and diabetes. Of course, many herbs such as clove and oregano have antioxidant characteristics and can provide the same health benefits.

They say, the older the better. Ageing wine helps with the flavor. The original fruit-heavy taste is replaced by hidden flavors such as honey, herbal notes, hay, mushroom, stone and earth. However, from my limited research, I saw that young wine was healthier than aged.

So the older man that now comes in mind when comparing him with aged wine conjures a picture of one of those older men who ride in a convertible, James Bond style. Maybe that looks good to you, maybe it doesn’t. It definitely is not better than it’s younger counterpart since we know that young wine is healthier.

Also note, not all wine ages well. You have to treat it with utmost care, process at the right temperature, humidity etc. So in other words, if we are comparing men and wine, not all men are going to age like the fine wine that this metaphor is trying to get us to imagine. The better kept men, the wealthy age well, and look better. It’s classist, with no actual, core improvement.

Ok, shall we talk about aging milk? If you take milk in it’s pure, raw form and let it sit on your countertop, you will get clabber followed by curd and whey. Skim the top of milk to get cream. If you let this age for a couple of days, you get sour cream. Take some yogurt culture and add it to your warm milk. You get yogurt. Add activated kefir grains to raw milk to get kefir. Skim the top of raw milk and beat the cream to get butter. The leftover water after making butter is buttermilk. Cook the butter to get ghee. Use a cheese culture and proper process, and you have cheese.

Most of us know the health benefits of each of these products. Milk, curd, whey, clabber, cheese, sour cream, yogurt, butter and buttermilk can provide you with complete, nutritious and wholesome meals that keep your body maximally nourished and in the best possible shape.

Getting to the fancy side, milk is used in cakes, icing, ice cream, puddings and a mind blowing range of products.

In other words, as milk ages and ferments, it breaks down the indigestible lactose (milk sugar) and casein (milk protein). So as milk ages, it becomes better for your body and health.

Also, unlike wine, whose antioxidant properties are not unique to it, but are shared by a host of herbs, which makes wine easily replaceable, there’s no other product that comes anywhere close to milk.

Likening a woman’s aging to the aging of milk is extremely appropriate. Just as milk get better and better for your health as it ages, as a woman ages she becomes a mother and a grandmother. Or if not, she will benefit the society with stronger inclination to nurture as she ages, rather than preen about her looks.

So, yes, I agree fully. Men indeed age like wine, and women, amazingly, age like milk.

To end this blog, lines from one of my favorite Beegees song (slightly modified), dedicated to the man who came up with this saying.

I started a joke

It started the whole world laughing

But I didn’t see

That the joke was on me, oh no.

References: