I’m currently reading a fascinating book, The Fever of 1721, about the first time that inoculation against smallpox was used in Colonial America. The man who proposed inoculation was the Reverand Cotton Mather, of Salem Witch Trial fame. He had read about it in the Proceedings of the Royal Society and one of his sons was among the first people inoculated.
One of the most striking things about Colonial society was the sheer amount of death. Mather himself buried 10 of his 15 children and two of his three wives. In the age when all children were breastfed, all food was organic, and everyone exercised, the average child lived until … death from infectious disease.
[pullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]When it comes to breastmilk substitutes, infant formula is the gold standard.[/pullquote]
Nothing screams “privilege” louder than our collective amnesia about the deadliness of the all natural lifestyle. Perhaps that’s why actress Kristin Cavallari is boasting about feeding her baby goat’s milk, which comes from an animal that routinely eats garbage.
Cavallari tells People Magazine:
I would rather feed my baby these real, organic ingredients than a heavily processed store-bought formula that contains ‘glucose syrup solids,’ which is another name for corn syrup solids, maltrodextrin, carrageenan, and palm oil …
Because her sons have “sensitivities to cow’s milk,” the former Laguna Beach star uses goat’s milk powder for her homemade formula. Other ingredients include organic maple syrup and cod-liver oil (see below for the full recipe).
Yeah, that’s certainly better than real organic Camphylobacter and Listeria bacteria found in goat’s milk. NOT.
When it comes to breastmilk substitutes, infant formula is the gold standard. Nothing else even comes close to a product that is pasteurized to remove bacteria, fortified to include every vitamin and mineral a human baby needs, and subject to rigorous purity standards. Anything else is not only inferior, but potentially deadly.
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends infant formula as the ONLY acceptable alternative. Making your own formula is specifically noted to be dangerous. Pediatric gastroenterologist Mark Corkins asks:
Why would you want to use an alternative formula when there are well tested and tried formulas widely available?
There are two reasons women like Cavallari use homemade formula. The first is ignorance. Putting goat’s milk in your baby’s bottle is no better than putting Mountain Dew in your baby’s bottle, but these women are so bewitched by the word “natural” that they never stop to think that most of the children who ever existed ate “real organic” ingredients and died in droves. There is NO health benefit to organic ingredients, a fact that has been demonstrated over and over and over again. Just because something is natural doesn’t make it healthy to consume. Tobacco, cocaine and heroin are all natural and all of them kill.
The second reason is that wacky “natural” substitutes are status symbols among the privileged. Goat’s milk is to the all natural crowd what a Gucci handbag is to New York socialites. A designer handbook is not better than a standard handbag in any way, but it is far more expensive And therefore conveys social status.
People Magazine includes Cavallari’s recipe for goat’s milk formula. If I were their legal counsel, I’d recommend that they get rid of that ASAP before a baby dies as a result.
That leads to another question. Why would anyone with more than two functioning brain cells take medical advice from an actress instead of a pediatrician? If you wouldn’t let the average actress pilot your next flight, or draw up the architectural plans for your new home, why would you let her tell you what should be in your infant’s formula? It takes less education and training to be a pilot or an architect than it takes to be a pediatrician.
Unfortunately, our culture worships celebrities. We breathlessly consume news of their romances and breakups, marriages and divorces. We buy the products for which they shill and read the books and blog posts that they write on topics they don’t understand. (Gwyneth Paltrow, I’m talking about you and your vaginal steaming!) And we ape them slavishly, wearing what they wear, eating what they eat, and dosing ourselves with deadly nonsense that they promote.
But let’s leave our babies out of it since their lives depend on medical advances like formula and vaccinations, not nonsense dreamed up by people whose claim to fame is their personal attractiveness.
For most of human history, the average woman gave birth to 8 or more children and the population grew very, very slowly. Why? Because most of those children did not survive long enough to have children of their own; all natural childhood is deadly.
Only countries with easy access to infant formula have low rates of infant mortality. That’s because any breastmilk substitute besides formula is unsafe.
Massive rates of infant and child death are 100% natural. Don’t take infant feeding advice from anyone who is clueless about that fact.
