Counter Rant
I don’t understand the insistence in the western Anglophone world that milk automatically means cow’s milk.
Coconut milk is a very normal word to say in my mother tongue (Bengali). What else are you even supposed to call it? Coconut “beverage” or “liquid” would be hella confusing because we wouldn’t know if one means the milk (the creamy liquid that comes from pressing the coconut pulp) or the water (the transparent liquid that resides in the pulp, and tastes and behaves completely differently). Are we supposed to go invent a new word every time we encounter a milky liquid?
Also, what about other mammalian milks? Do we need to invent a new name for goat milk? (Which is a fairly common drink in India, possibly thanks to Gandhi’s obsession with the stuff) What about sheep milk (not very common in India, but widely used in some parts of Europe). Or Yak’s Milk? (Pretty popular in specific pockets of India).
Milk is any white creamy liquid. That’s how it has always been used, in English and in other languages, going back centuries. The cow agriculture industry must have mounted one hell of a PR campaign to convince western consumes that milk automatically implies it must come from a cow. In India, you just look at the packaging. Does it have a picture of a cow on it? Well then it comes from a cow. Does it have a coconut on it? You guessed it, it comes from a coconut. Simple. I don’t see how that can ever be confusing to customers.
Rant over
What’s considered “healthy” and “optimal” by research conducted by and on folks living in the higher and drier northern latitudes doesn’t always match what people in the tropics “feel”.
The annual average for humidity is 77% where I grew up, and highest humidity is around 88% during the monsoons. Well outside your healthy range. My childhood home doesn’t have air conditioning to this day, so I do feel these humidities whenever I’m there. And I like it, unless it’s peak summer (I adore the monsoons - it’s my favourite season, and I miss that I don’t really have “proper” monsoon rains where I live now). Most friends who still live there also adore the monsoon weather - though they hate that their clothes takes days to dry after a wash, and other inconveniences. None of them use dehumidifiers, or complain of humidity outside the summer sweating season.
The annual average where I currently live is 55%. Which is pretty high on your healthy range. But my skin feels dry AF, even with daily moisturization, my lips crack if I drink < 5L water per day, and my hair has this brittle texture I don’t like. All of which disappears after a week in my childhood home.
So high humidity might promote mould growth (though I have never encountered it myself, it’s entirely possible we will find some if we break the walls down), but to people who grew up with it, it can also feel comfortable. Hence the market for humidifiers, with air conditioning on the rise - rather than dehumidifiers.