(classical baroque music)
- Have you heard of this "gallon
of milk" challenge before?
Here's the idea, so you
or, you know, whoever,
tries to drink a gallon of milk
and hold it down for
an hour without puking.
It sounds, well, unnecessary
is a word, right?
I mean, it's called a "challenge",
but I don't think you win anything.
Still, thousands of people have tried,
and failed at this endeavour.
If you've already heard of
this, then you've probably
also heard that it's impossible.
Spoiler alert: It's not,
it's just really hard
and kind of gross.
So what makes drinking milk so difficult?
Let's begin at the basics.
Drinking a gallon of anything
in an hour can be hazardous,
even a gallon of water
can be fatal if you drink it too quickly.
That's because too much water overloads
the circulatory system and the kidneys.
It dilutes blood
electrolytes and it can cause
cells to swell, potentially
causing brain damage or death.
So it's not surprising
that a gallon of milk
is also bad business, stomach-wise.
Most people who attempt it vomit,
and I mean the overwhelming majority.
There are a few proposed
causes for this condition.
You'll often hear people
blame lactose for the, uh,
"puketitude", let's call it,
the "puketitude" of milk.
Lactose is essentially milk sugar
and your body can only
process so much of it
at a given time.
You need an enzyme called "lactase"
to deal with the lactose.
The idea here is that people
who are lactose intolerant
can't process any lactose, and they may
throw up from just one glass of milk,
but nutritionists like Dr. Sarah Ash at
North Carolina State
University point out that
lactose intolerance is a problem of the
large intestine, not the stomach.
Since lactose is digested and absorbed
in the small intestine, the
trouble doesn't really hit
until it passes to the large intestine,
where it is consumed by bacteria,
producing diarrhea and gas, both of those
are unpleasant in their own ways,
but it's nothing that would stop you
from holding the milk down.
Then; however, there's calcium.
Milk contains a lot of it, about 300mg per
eight ounce glass. For comparison,
one "Tums" chewable tablet contains about
200mg of available calcium,
so drinking a gallon of milk
is like downing 25 "Tums" tablets at once.
This messes up the acid
balance in your stomach,
and it gives your stomach another reason
to consider puking.
The most likely culprit; however,
is surprisingly simple.
It's just stomach size.
The average stomach can
hold about a half gallon
of whatever. More than
that and you run the risk
of triggering the stretch
receptors in your stomach,
and these can induce vomiting.
There are a few people with the ability
to complete this challenge, like
professional competitive eaters,
but for most of us, this is a pipe dream
that can quickly turn messy.
So, while chugging a gallon
of milk may be more difficult
than chugging water, it turns out
that drinking a gallon
of just about anything
this quickly is a horrible idea.
Unless you're Takeru Kobayashi,
Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas,
or one of the other gustatory greats.
And that's it. Have you
tried this challenge before?
How did it work out?
What other weird food
challenges have you heard of?
In the meantime, learn
more by visiting us at
howstuffworks.com
