Short Stuff: What did we use before infant formula?

As everyone knows. Uh, we gotta think our old colleagues at how stuff works and Alicia Hoyt for this very timely article. But I was thinking the other day. I was like, well, what did they used to do? Because baby formula is pretty new and not and you know mothers have not you know, it's not like not being

able to breastfeed is a new thing. Uh. There have always been conditions, uh that could lead to that, or you know, some people just don't want a breastfeed, or like in our case, you adopt a kid, you don't have the option of breastfeeding. So what did they used to do? And I guess the first thing we should talk about, is wet nurses. Yeah, because that's the obvious idea.

I mean, the wet nurses go back for like four thousand years at least um, where women were hired or if they were enslaved, um they would be forced to nurse babies. Usually it was associated with the elite though, right. Yeah, And I did some more research on this, and there's even a book about the exploitative nature in the history of wet nursing, because it seems like lesser and lesser.

It wasn't just like, oh, it's just a job you can have and more it's like, well, I've got a lot of money, I'm not interested, so you do it. Or you're an enslaved person, so we're gonna take advantage of you by forcing you to do so. Um. It seems like it's got a pretty exploitive, ugly pass, but

it still happens. There are technically there are still wet nurses you can hire, but it seems like from what I researched, the sharing of breast milk these days is way more casual among friends and family, like, hey, uh, this mom is busy working, so their mom friends might chip in and help and pump and dump and you can here's my breast milk. You can have it for

this week you're really busy. Um, it seems to be more of breast pumping, although there is you know, there are still friends and family that are comfortable with saying like, no, you can just breastfeed my child. That's great, it's natural, it's lovely and beautiful. Right, it's not exploitive in that sense at all. Right, Like things really changed post Civil War,

it seems like with the wet nursing so um. Yeah, And we talked also about milk banks, where like you might have, um, you might feed your baby milk from another person who um, you might never meet, who just donates her extra milk because she can and wants to. We talked about that in Are Either a Breastfeeding or bottle feeding episode? Remember the two parter that wee Those were good. Those were really good. Yeah. I think they

still stand up too. So if you want to know more about infant formula, go check that out or breastfeeding, go check the other one now. But so, if you didn't have access to a wet nurse, Chuck, what did you do, hot shot? What did you do? Milk a donkey. Yeah, hold still donkey, I joke, but that's actually true. They you know, obviously, animal milk is something that we drink, uh, some people do at least, I like cow's milk, but

they would give kids cow's milk. But in other places, depending what animals you had around, could be a donkey or a goat or a horse or something. Yeah, sheep's, pigs, and any mammal makes milk. Even Robert de Nira, you could milk meat, Greg That's right, So that makes sense. I mean, yeah, milk from another animal that it's probably a pretty good alternative, especially if milk from humans is

unavailable for one reason or another. But they also um came up with other methods, I guess starting in the century UM where they would create something called pap and it was basically like um milk toast or cereal wet cereal with with water, and they would feed it to a baby UM using a special device called a pap boat, which if you look it up, it's a gravy boat. They would use a gravy boat to feed an infant

milk toast. Right, they would clean the gravy out all right, put the back in, and it would be a pat boat. Right there you go. The problem here, though, is is this was before they knew about sterilization and things like that, and so that was the big problem. It wasn't as much of the nutrients that the baby was getting, although that was a factor, but as far as infant mortality

and uh kids growing up with deficiencies. Uh, most times it was because I think of the fact that these pat boats weren't very sterile that they were shoving in the kids out. Yeah, it was like the stuff you should know TV shows craft services table, remember that, that's right, you know. I finally set uh my daughter down. We watched one of those the end of the day. Oh yeah,

what did she think? She was like, I mean, she kind of gets that I do a job where people know who I am and then I've been on TV and stuff. But I think when she actually saw it and saw us, she was a little knocked out. I think she thought it was pretty cool. Was she like, wow, Josh is really wearing a lot of makeup Now I said that, right, She was like, oh no, I see exactly.

I couldn't miss it. Dan. Uh so the first infant formula or should we take a break, Yeah, let's take a break, all right, then we'll talk about the first infant formula. Yeah, okay, we'll be right back. Okay, the first are you still humming? You know? All right? The first infant formula attempt as far as like, hey, let's try and duplicate human breast milk was in eighteen sixty five and a gentleman named Justice von Liebig and that is the first baby formula. It was cow's milk. It

was malt, flour, wheat and potassium bicarbonate. And then I think when was that eighteen sixty five? A couple of years later, another pharmacist name Henri. Uh is it nestle, nestle, nest that's the nest Lee guy, I figured, But is it pronounced nestlie in French? I think? So? All right, they launched the uh, well, why don't you say it,

Mr Frenchie arene lectaneously and it means plain flour, milky nestle. Yeah, and it was It was the same thing basically, but it was just easier to mix together and get out the door. And then I think only like fifteen years later or so, they were up to close to thirty brands of infant food on the shelves. Yeah, because von Liebig really kicked something off. And also we got a hat tip that guy a little more. He also gave us beef bullion cubes and UM synthetic fertilizers, among many

many other things. So he definitely changed the world quite a bit. Interesting. Uh, the nineteen fifties, I think is when things really came around as far as formula. Like before that, in the thirties and forties, they would recommend like evaporated milk or something once they figured safely canning things.

But in the nineteen early nineteen fifties is when the first liquid formula was invented that you didn't have to mix up, and a lot of people, well just a lot of mothers was just like, all right, I'd really use this than breastfeed. And then I think in the seventies and eighties, Uh, it came back around a little more to mothers wanting to breastfeed more. And as Alicia White points out, we now live in a time, thankfully where there's UM at least shouldn't be any judgment either

way on how people want to feed their babies. Yeah, because I think you can trace that to um. Different waves of feminism as well, Like that formula freed women in a lot of ways from being shackled to the household necessarily like sorry, you gotta raise the kid or else it's gonna starve. Now it's like, no, here, dad, here's some formula. Even you can do this, Even you

can do this without screwing it up, Roger. And then it's it's like and then as feminism kind of took different forms, and it was like, hey, let's stop being judge or let's stop forcing women to find, you know, to all follow one directions as feminists, it kind of came back around and then finally we uses in a non judgmental state. And by the way, we need to do an episode on feminism once and for all. Yeah, that would probably be at least a two parter because

of the all the different waves of feminism. I would think maybe one per wave. Oh boy, that'd be a lot. That's like a mini series. All right, well we'll see, um, but we should talk about whether or not because you know, obviously, with the shortage right now, they're probably uh desperate mothers out there, especially in in lower income brackets, that are thinking, could I should I make my own infant formula and sort of generally experts say that's not a good idea

for a lot of reasons. Well, yeah, I mean, infant formula today is heavily regulated. Um. There was an act called the Infant Formula Act of nine, which is described as one of the most specific and detailed acts ever passed by Congress that sets a lot of standards for maximum levels of nutrients, minimum levels of nutrients. Um, you know what cons stitudes, adulteration what um what how a recall follows. It's really specific to like make sure that formulas as safe as it gets. And so it's really

heavily formulated. It's technically an ultra processed food to be a Group four food by the way, but it's like really scientifically calibrated. And you just can't do that at home with homemade ingredients, right. I'm sure there are recipes that probably include things like cow's milk, generally those quartz crystals, generally vegetable oil, uh, lactose, But that, like you said, there are uh, just a whole host of um nutrients that they have settled on as like, hey, we know

how to make baby formula. So because I think in the old days like the stuff they were doing, it would it would plump a baby up just fine, but they were not getting the nutrients they needed. And it's it's like back then it was like, oh, you got a big, round, chubby, healthy baby. Uh and that dark circles under his eyes. Yeah, And that wasn't always the case. So now they've really, um thankfully honed it down to

something that they say you shouldn't replicate at home. And I don't think this is a case where it's just like big formulas squashing the the idea that you could do this yourself. It seems like a genuine safety issue. Yes, And I should point out that we have enough self perspective that we realize we've done a complete one eight about face on ultra processed foods and made at home foods in this episode. Oh yeah, sure, compared to our ultra processed foods episode. That's a good point. It is

a good point. And if that one hasn't come out yet, if you have it to look forward to, yeah, exactly, you'll you'll understand a lot better when the episode comes out. That's right, you got anything else? I got nothing else? They say, don't do it? Uh? Really just my heart goes out to anyone out there that's stressed out about trying to find formula and hopefully that can be corrected soon. Yeah. That has to be like a deep, profound, very unique

form of stress. Yeah, so hanging there, everybody. If you have a story about that, especially if you have tips or techniques that are proven and scientifically based, maybe send them in and we'll try to share them with everybody. How about that? Agreed? Okay, Well, since Chuck said, agreed, everybody's short stuff is out. Stuff you should know is

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