This episode is one of staggering statistics. They are thrown at us a number of times, such as the number of gallons milk consumed each year in the United States, how much an average cow produces, what kind of cow is responsible for 91 percent of all our milk; how many are milked each day and how much each milking produces, etc., etc. The numbers are staggering, in all cases. Cows aren't the only ones who provide milk, of course, and the amount a humpback whale provides for her baby will really astound you.
After watching the entire show, I couldn't help but wonder how so much milk was distributed to folks 50-100 years ago and they could do it, considering the quantity that is produced today, thanks to machinery and even robots who milk cows!! It's unbelievable who mechanized dairy farms are today. They literally have carousel-type assembly line for cows to get milked twice a day, every day for 305 straight days a year. (Cows are given off the rest of the day to deliver calves....and then it's back to being milked.) Almost nobody ever milk a cow anymore. It's all machines.
Later in the program, we visit a place that makes butter, which we learn is 80 percent milk-fat. We learn about yogurt, pasteurization, condensed milk, powered mill, flavored milk, chocolate milk, soy products, casein (which is used in a lot of products), on and on.
The last segment was different, showing a fairly young man and his wife on their farm, which includes yaks, a water buffalo and a bunch of goats. Ya think milking a water buffalo is easy? Not really!