I am going to be moving in a few weeks and was going through some old things to see what I wanted to keep and what I wanted to get rid of. I found my old baby album--and I mean OLD, since I was born in 1946. I am one of the original "baby boomers" born in the first year after the end of World War II. As I flipped through the baby album, a hand-written recipe for baby formula fell out. It was in my mom's handwriting. I guess they didn't have canned or powdered formula back then, so she had to make her own. I am pretty sure the doctor gave her the directions on how to make the formula. The recipe called for the following ingredients:

Canned Carnation milk
White (light) Kayro syrup
1 egg yolk
2 drops of baby vitamins

Now I realize this may have been the best they could do back then if a mom couldn't nurse or didn't want to, but geez, what a way to start out in life. Can you imagine drinking that for the first two years of life? I was a REALLY pudgy baby. Then went through a skinny phase after I reached puberty and then gained weight again as an adult and have been battling the battle of the bulge all my adult life.

I did some research and found out that a lot of vets and cat and dog breeders use this recipe to fatten up puny pups and kittens. Only problem is ---I am not a puppy or kitten and I don't get as much exercise as they do!

Don't feel bad.... I was born in 1958 and doctors even then were discouraging women from breast feeding and to use formula instead. They even spread that message to developing countries. It was one of the worst cases of industry setting medical standards ever. Children starved in poor countries because the mother's milk dried up and they couldn't afford the formula.

Isn't that what the Nestle boycott was about-selling baby formula that was not in best interest of third world?

Mein gott!!! Isn't breast milk supposed to be just water and nutrients anyway!!! Couldn't a child get dehydrated on that!!!?!!!

How awful. I remember hearing about Nestle and third world nations as well. I was a bottle fed baby (though not a baby boomer) yet I somehow was skinny baby (skinny child, skinny teenager, skinny until 21).

Charlie Girl

I think most natural breast milks are pretty high in fat. One species of seal nurses for five days and gains 60# in that time.

I was born in 1956, at the end of the baby boomers. In my baby book is a handwritten recipe for formula from the doctor. It was very similar to your's. I was a tiny baby (under 5 pounds) and I guess they were trying to fatten me up.

Though my mom did all kinds of loony things (including feeding us lots of carbage 'cause it was cheap) to us, I am grateful that at least we were all breastfed.

Interesting.... I am born same year, Germany, my mom breast fed me for a year and she was told breast milk is best (though supplemented with cereals starting at 6 weeks)- I was pudgy big time. My husband's mom, same year, same country, was tested and told her breast milk was not good. I never was able to find out what they tested - she was astonished that they don't test every woman's milk if it is any good. My best guess is DDT, a pesticide they found at one point in breast milk - but I have really no idea!

Doctors here used to "test" a woman's breastmilk by just looking at her expressed milk. If it looked thin (which despite its high fat content, breastmilk does look thin) the doctor would say it wasn't any good.

BTW, no, human milk is not just water and nutrients - the human race would have died out long ago! A mother's milk contains the precise ratio of carbs/protein/fat that her baby needs. The ratios even change as the baby gets older. It also contains the mother's immunity, which is why formula-fed babies as a whole are sicker and have more allergies than naturally fed babies.

Jen