Many years ago, my doctor told me that “cow’s milk is meant to nourish baby cows, not baby people.” He was encouraging me to continue to breastfeed rather than switch my growing son to the same milk the rest of the family drank. We compromised and settled on one of the prepared canned formulas that had just recently become available. I felt very modern as I remembered my mother ‘s frequent chore preparing formula for my baby sister. It seemed to involve, aside from much time and effort, double-boilers, Karo syrup and condensed milk along with vitamin drops and purified water. Her own mother had lost her first baby because she couldn’t produce enough milk and, being very young and living isolated on the Kansas prairie, had no one to advise her of how to feed her tiny daughter.
I couldn’t help wondering, in view of recent shortages, why there had been such a problem finding formula for babies other than preemies or those with allergies. Is it laziness that prevents parents from making their own formulas as our mothers and grandmothers did? Or greed for hoarding weeks and months worth of supplies and leaving nothing for those who can’t afford to stockpile in the face of shortages? I recognize the need for special formulas for those babies with special needs who might, as did such children in past generations, starve for lack of food they could digest, but why grab all the regular formula off the shelves?
I have cousins who could not drink cows’ milk and their whole immediate family eventually ended up using goats’ milk exclusively, not just for drinking but for everything, including baking and making candy. (I do not care to ever repeat my one experience with goat’s milk fudge.) I realize that keeping and milking goats is not practical for many people, but their milk is available for those who wish to buy it. That might feed at least some of those babies needing special formulas.
Fads and fashions come and go in all areas of life, and notions of how to best nourish our children are not exempt from those trends. I once had a neighbor (a nurse) who added a raw egg yolk to her babies’ formulas to make sure they were getting enough nourishment before they were old enough to eat solid food. I also remember how she laughed at herself later when eggs were declared to be really bad for us. You might paraphrase my earlier doctor’s advice and say that “eggs were meant to nourish baby chickens, not baby people.”
Exaggerated lab test results and diet fads not withstanding, I’ve always believed that a wide variety of foods in one’s diet is the best choice. One of my children had a temporary wheat allergy which eventually vanished more or less on its own, but that didn’t stop me from baking birthday cakes, cookies and other treats using alternate ingredients instead of wheat flour. Even as long as fifty years ago there were recipes and other information available to help us deal with food allergies and special dietary needs. I find it hard to believe, in these more modern times when so much information is available at the touch of a computer button, that help has not been out there for those parents who are having trouble finding formula for their babies. Do we really have to rely on store shelves stocked with ready-made products provided by just a few companies? Maybe we should take a closer look at the past and see if there are a few things to be learned from it.
My mother’s generation fed their babies with freshly mashed fruits and vegetables, pulp scraped from cooked meat, and eggs for protein. My generation of mothers relied on Heinz and Gerber for those convenient little jars of pureed foods. Our grandchildren enjoyed a lot of the same foods their parents ate, put through a food mill. I’m hoping future generations continue the trend toward common sense.