@barefootstache Well two parts here.

With regards to lactose intolerant people I think its fair to say milk isnt healthy for them. Then again people can be allergic to whole wheat but I dont think that makes it valid to say that whole wheat is inherently unhealthy either.

As for being healthy on its own merit, assuming we are talking about skim milk here, it is low in fat, low in sugars, and is a decent source of vitamins. Its hard to frame it as unhealthy, in fact I'd say its probably one of the healthier drink choices. Sodas are just a pile of sugar, even vegetable and fruit juices can be way too high in sugar to be healthy.

@freemo

I agree that the argument of being allergic to something doesn't suffice as the product to be unhealthy. Though considering that about 65% of the world population (https://milk.procon.org/lactose-intolerance-by-country/) is lactose intolerant compared that <1% (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheat_allergy) and up to 30% (https://www.webmd.com/allergies/allergy-statistics in USA) are allergic to anything, shines a better picture at it's prevalence.

Further using sugar as a measurement of health is also questionable since lactose is also a sugar. Then given the choice between milk and freggie (fruit/veggie) juices, freggie juices have a less long-term side effects of type 2 diabetes being the most prevalent, which can be easily neutralized by adding more pulp to the liquid. Where on the other hand milk carries much more side effects (https://www.peta.org/living/food/reasons-stop-drinking-milk/).

Comparing milk vs sodas vs freggie juices, is really juice comparing which poison is the healthier option. In general none should be consumed and best is to stick water or unsweetened herbal teas.

@barefootstache This is a good case where you have to be careful about how you use statistics. Did you consider why, from an evolutionary standpoint, those percentages are what they are?

So the scientific explanation as I heard it goes something like this. Cows, and specifically milk cows, as a species for most of the pre-historic age were isolated to western countries and didnt have much of a presence in the east. Therefore the gene needed to break down lactose evolved such that it is far more prevalent in people from western races rather than eastern races.

so what we have if really a much higher chance of being lactose intolerant if you are of primarily asian descent vs european. Now add to this that the majority of the worlds population are far-east descended this means your going to have more lactose intolerant people would wide than lactose tolerant... But it completely clouds the fact that among people of european descent lactose intolerance is far more rare.

Finally when talking about sugar you make a similar error in generalization I think. lactose is a sugar, yes, technically true, but its glycemic index is next to nothing.. like 5 or 10 or something.. glucose is 100+ glycemic index. While they might be sugars they arent at all similar in terms of their metabolism