What Does Whale Milk Taste Like? - Straight Dope Message Board Home » What Does Whale Milk Taste Like » What Does Whale Milk Taste Like? - Straight Dope Message Board Maybe your like What Does What It Do Mean What Does What You On Mean What Does Whd Mean In Texting What Does White Gold Look Like What Does White Wine Taste Like What does Whale Milk taste like? Factual Questions oldscratch January 23, 2001, 11:08pm 1 Is it fishy? It’s got 53 times the ammount of fat as human milk. Speaking of which what are the relatives fat contents of human and other milks. hmmmm. Johanna January 23, 2001, 11:18pm 2 Can’t say . . . but in Paul Theroux’s (thinly fictionalized) autobiographical novel My Secret History there’s a chapter titled “Whale Steaks” about his adolescence in Massachusetts. Seems there was an eatery there in the 1950s which advertised Whale Steaks, and he always wondered what it would be like to eat one. Well, he went through a lot of weird adolescent shit on the way to getting a chance to eat Whale Steak, and when he finally sat down to it, he wasn’t able to stomach it. He reported that it tasted fishy (of course). 2planka January 23, 2001, 11:36pm 3 CHICKEN!!! Sorry… couldn’t resist. :eek: toadspittle January 23, 2001, 11:54pm 4 Sorry, it’s been awhile since I wrote about various mammals’ milk fat content, but, as I recall, whale milk is slightly more than 50% fat, human milk closer to skim/1% levels. (Cow milk is 4% fat.) But this is just from long-ago memories. I’ll check for cites. Don’t know about the tastes, though… Shatzi January 23, 2001, 11:55pm 5 I’d imagine it would be extremely creamy and rich because of that high fat content (whale calves need to gain /enormous/ amounts of weight by the day)…however I doubt it would taste ‘fishy’ or have any other strange taste. Milk is milk ;> handy January 23, 2001, 11:59pm 6 Ask at a Japanese restaurant, they know what whale tastes like. Ours did. toadspittle January 24, 2001, 12:00am 7 Here’s a link. The table is way down the page. http://classes.aces.uiuc.edu/AnSci308/milkcomp.html I stand corrected. Human milk: 4.5% fat (comparable to cow milk, which varies by breed) Whale: 34.8% fat Gray seal: 53.2% fat Hmm. “Whale” is kind of vague when referring to the entire cetacean group. I could have sworn that Blue Whale milk had the highest fat content. I’ll check more. oldscratch January 24, 2001, 12:08am 8 *Originally posted by Shatzi * **however I doubt it would taste ‘fishy’ or have any other strange taste. Milk is milk ;> ** Have you tried various types of milk? Goat milk, sheep milk, human milk, lama’s milk, horse’s milk, and bear’s milk all taste very different… so I’m guessing that whale’s milk would pick up from what they eat. Would it have a higher salt content? I know they don’t eat fish, but what about the killer whales… hmmmm. toadspittle January 24, 2001, 12:09am 9 This one says “35-50%” fat. http://www.bigsurcalifornia.org/whalesblue.html This one, 45-50%. http://www.zoomwhales.com/subjects/whales/species/Bluewhale.shtml It’s a lot. I imagine it would be rather creamy. Heavy cream is 37% fat according to the USDA. Butter is 81% fat. So mix them half and half to get a fair approximation. (And, yes, I imagine it would taste pretty fishy.) Shatzi January 24, 2001, 12:26am 10 (don’t mind me, just rambling here ;> ) Well I don’t mean all milk tastes exactly the same there…perhaps I used a poor choice of words. I know there are subtle differences in different types of milk. I’ve had cow’s milk, goat’s milk, and even remember the taste of my mother’s milk from when my sister was born (kinda sweet and had an almond-like flavor, as I recall ) But I guess my point is that pretty much all milk probably would have that same…creamy…milky taste, right? I can’t claim to be an expert on the subject, but from what I know about biology and anatomy I don’t think that an animal’s diet would impact the taste of milk in that way…for example a whale’s milk shouldn’t taste just like the fish it eats…am I making sense? I dunno. Good question! Rasa January 24, 2001, 12:26am 11 I can’t help you with what it tastes like, but I have two things to say: A grey whale’s tongue weighs 3,000 lbs Hi, Opal! You’re watching waaaaay too much Animal Planet. Johanna January 24, 2001, 12:57am 12 Would it have a higher salt content? In Ulysses, Leopold Bloom (who spends half his time thinking about food) ponders the question: If you cram a turkey, say, on chestnut meal it tastes like that. Eat pig like pig. But then why is it that saltwater fish are not salty? How is that? Arjuna34 January 24, 2001, 1:15am 13 *Originally posted by Shatzi * ** I can’t claim to be an expert on the subject, but from what I know about biology and anatomy I don’t think that an animal’s diet would impact the taste of milk in that way…for example a whale’s milk shouldn’t taste just like the fish it eats…am I making sense? I dunno. Good question! ** Actually, for humans at least, the milk taste is influenced quite a bit by the mother’s diet. It’s even been speculated that infants aquire a taste for the local cuisine by tasting hints of it while breast feeding, and these tastes persist into adulthood. Arjuna34 Sunspace January 24, 2001, 1:28am 14 oldscratch said: Have you tried various types of milk? Goat milk, sheep milk, human milk, lama’s milk, horse’s milk, and bear’s milk all taste very different… Bear milk? Bear milk?!? Now there’s a job I wouldn’t want… <scanario> After an emergency call from the hospital, a panicked spouse rushes to the hospital: “Honey, what happened?” “First day on the job at the dairy, and because I was the newbie, they got me to milk the bears…” :eek: Arjuna34 said: It’s even been speculated that infants aquire a taste for the local cuisine by tasting hints of it while breast feeding, and these tastes persist into adulthood. Would this hold for infants who were not breast-fed? Arjuna34 January 24, 2001, 1:41am 15 *Originally posted by Sunspace * ** Arjuna34 said: It’s even been speculated that infants aquire a taste for the local cuisine by tasting hints of it while breast feeding, and these tastes persist into adulthood. Would this hold for infants who were not breast-fed? ** I don’t see how a formula-fed baby would get any hint of local tastes, beyond any similarity of the formula with the local food. Arjuna34 CalMeacham January 24, 2001, 2:15am 16 Victor B. Schaeffer talks about the fat content of whale’s milk in his wonderful book “The Year of the Whale”. It’s more tha 50% fat for a sperm whale, he says, but he doesn’t say what it tastes like. S-Terry_Dan January 24, 2001, 4:49pm 17 Intriguing. It could taste like a milkshake for all we know, but the logistics of it are extremely difficult. How, exactly, do you milk a whale? Do you winch it up out of the water? Make some sort of underwater milking machine (with some way to keep the salt water out)? Or just nudge a nursing calf out of the way and go for it? …actually, it’d probably be easier if you’re willing to settle for orca. Good luck finding a lactating whale in the wild. Spoke January 24, 2001, 8:01pm 18 I’m betting on a fishy taste. I know that if you have a milk cow, you have to keep her from eating wild onions, or the milk winds up tasting oniony. So I think it’s probably a safe assumption that the seafood diet of whales lends their milk a fishy flavor. oldscratch January 24, 2001, 8:22pm 19 I was thinking that spoke- but I also thought, most whales eat plankton. How does plankton taste? does it taste fishy? I can understand for killer whales and such. I guess an easy test would be to taste the breast milk of a human female in a sea area, someone who subsisted on mostly fish and seafood. That might steer us in the right direction. Kimstu January 25, 2001, 12:15am 20 Well, Jules Verne had, if not an informed opinion, at least an opinion on this question: Captain Nemo watched the troop of cetacea playing on the waters about a mile from the Nautilus. “They are southern whales,” said he; “there goes the fortune of a whole fleet of whalers.” […] I recognised the southern whale by its flat head, which is entirely black. Anatomically, it is distinguished from the white whale and the North Cape whale by the seven cervical vertebræ, and it has two more ribs than its congeners. The unfortunate cetacean was lying on its side, riddled with holes from the bites, and quite dead. From its mutilated fin still hung a young whale which it could not save from the massacre. Its open mouth let the water flow in and out, murmuring like the waves breaking on the shore. Captain Nemo steered close to the corpse of the creature. Two of his men mounted its side, and I saw, not without surprise, that they were drawing from its breasts all the milk which they contained, that is to say, about two or three tons. The Captain offered me a cup of the milk, which was still warm. I could not help showing my repugnance to the drink; but he assured me that it was excellent, and not to be distinguished from cow’s milk. I tasted it, and was of his opinion. It was a useful reserve to us, for in the shape of salt butter or cheese it would form an agreeable variety from our ordinary food. So Verne suggests that the milk of the “southern whale”, at least, tastes indistinguishable from cow’s milk. Where he got this information, or whether he just made it up, I have no idea. next page → Related topics Topic Replies Views Activity Have you ever tried human breast milk? How did it taste? In My Humble Opinion 41 1956 May 9, 2003 Has anybody here ever tasted seal or whale? Factual Questions 53 6102 November 13, 2008 Calling all adult breastmilk tasters (no, your infancy does not count) In My Humble Opinion 48 3863 January 10, 2009 What I missed most about our first child...(TMI) Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share 14 1370 August 8, 2003 Why does foreign milk taste so weird to me? Factual Questions 25 22865 August 19, 2012 Tag » What Does Whale Milk Taste Like Drinking Orca Milk And Other Ways SeaWorld Employees Spend ... What Does Whale Milk Taste Like? - Quora What Would Dolphin Or Whale Milk Taste Like? - Reddit What Does Whale Milk Taste Like?Many Mammals Can Drink Milk, Why ... What Does Whale Milk Taste Like - Realonomics What Does Whale Milk Taste Like? - Fluther Does Whale Milk Taste Like? - Parkers Legacy How Do Whales Breastfeed Underwater? - North American Nature But What Does It Taste Like? - Hawaii Ocean Sports Whale Milk - How To Discuss THE COMPOSITION OF DOLPHIN MILK How To Milk A Killer Whale - The New York Times
