That's How We Always Did It

So pretty much everyone has heard this story in different variations of the woman that cuts the end off of a ham/roast.  She tells her husband who asks why she does this that it's what her mother always did. She calls the mother to find out and she says it was what her mother always did.  When asked, Grandma says she cut the ends of the meat off because that was the only way it would fit in her roasting pan!

I heard this story years ago and it made me wonder what we do because "that's how we always did it" without questioning the whys.  I am a "like to know why" person but even something like this has snuck in on me from time to time, where I do the thing someone shows me, unquestioningly.
Recently we have been exploring the delicious world of raw milk and the nutritional benefits of kefir and unpasteurized dairy.  Raw milk is not only unpasteurized, but also non-homogenized.  (Homogenization being that process that fuses the cream that rises to the top with the rest of the milk so it does not separate.)  I've been drinking pasteurized, homogenized milk my whole life but for some reason, I grew up always giving the milk a few good hard shakes before drinking it.  I never stopped to wonder why. My parents did it and I learned to do it and then passed this little milk-shaking tradition on to my kids.  I can hardly bring myself to take a swallow from milk that doesn't have the little bubbles on top from being shaken, or out of a plastic cup...... but I digress.  The other day when shaking the raw milk, intentionally to mix the cream in with the milk, I realized that this "milk shaking" must have been passed on in my family for several generations.  Though we have been drinking milk that did not separate and thus had no purpose for shaking it for many years now, still we shake it, because that's how we always did it.
I'm looking at the world with new eyes. I'm questioning everything and asking why.