By Marie Bishop, Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD

From Wise Traditions in Food, Farming and the Healing Arts, the quarterly magazine of the Weston A. Price Foundation. Volume 6, Number 2, Pages 18-28.

Make no mistake: the best food for baby is breastmilk from a healthy mother. However, many situations call out for a good substitute: adopted and orphaned babies, babies born to mothers with serious health problems, and babies whose mothers do not have enough milk (a situation that does happen occasionally) deserve to receive something better than commercial formula.

The following questions have been compiled by the authors over a period of several years and should cover most situations encountered by parents giving homemade formula to their babies.

Refrigerated Ingredients

Q:   Which of the added ingredients should be refrigerated?

A:   Sunflower oil and bifidum; keep the cod liver oil in a cool, dark place.

Is Bifidum Infantis Necessary?

Q.   Would you need to put bifidus in the formula if you were using cultured milk? Wouldn't cultured milk contain bifidus?

A.    No, bifidum infantis is a beneficial gut flora that predominates in the infant until age 7. Infants can't get it except from the mother in the birth canal, and then it's still helpful to get more.

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Making Homemade Baby Formula

My adopted son Tate started on the homemade raw milk formula when he was three days old -- and has thrived on it. Since I knew I would be making formula for my baby, I was able to prepare ahead of time.

I love to cook, but like most people, I took one look at the raw milk formula in Nourishing Traditions and was a little apprehensive with the long list of ingredients. Actually, I added one other ingredient -- 1-2 tablespoons cow colostrum to each batch.

I knew that sleep deprivation was in my future! Nevertheless, I forged ahead with optimism, and to my great delight, after the first few times of making the formula, it became easy as baby-pie! It only takes 20 minutes to make from start to finish, including clean up!

Here are some of my tricks. First, before Tate arrived, I made ice-cube portions of the whey, cream and colostrum. My raw milk dairy farm has the most wonderful milk, but cream is hard to come by.

I also opted to not make my own whey since my husband and I enjoy drinking the milk. So I ordered several gallons of whey, one gallon colostrum and one gallon of cream from Organic Pastures in California (www.organicpastures.com). It comes frozen and they assured me it was perfectly fine to thaw and freeze again in the ice cube trays.

A typical cube section in a tray equals two tablespoons. This is the perfect amount for the formula; four tablespoons or two cubes for the whey and two tablespoons or one cube for the cream and colostrum.

Here's my early morning routine. First I rinse off everything with hot water to make sure there is nothing foreign on my utensils. I fill an 8-cup glass measuring bowl with a pour spout with 2 cups of filtered water, then scoop out 2 tablespoons to make 1 7/8 cups.

I pour this into a stainless steel pot and add the gelatin. I turn the stove on between low and medium to just warm the ingredients, not boil. Then I add 2 frozen cubes of whey, and 1 each of cream and colostrum.

I also add the coconut oil to the pot so that it melts sufficiently. In the same measuring bowl I used for the water, I add the milk and the rest of the oils and dry ingredients (which are available at most health food stores and/or www.radiantlifecatalog.com, (888) 593-8333).

By the time I am done with that, the frozen ingredients are melted and I add them together in the big glass measuring bowl.

At this point I blend the formula in the blender. I found when left unblended the oils in the formula do not combine well enough. Be sure not to blend for too long, as the cream may curdle.

Then I pour the formula back into the measuring bowl, divide it into glass baby bottles, add the nipples and tops, and that's it! Even with sleep deprivation, I find this process to be easy and doable.

For the actual feedings, I use a bottle warmer that heats with steam instead of going to the stove to boil water each time. When you have a hungry baby, as many of you know, warming a bottle is something you want to happen sooner rather than later.

Once you do it a few times, it's easy ... and our baby has thrived on the formula!

For those adoptive parents out there, please feel free to contact me for extra support and encouragement. (jen@nourishingconnections.org).                                                                  

Jen Allbritton, CN, Evergreen, Colorado

Brainwashed

Breast milk is best. Cow's milk is for baby cows. Breast milk boosts your baby's immune system. Formula can cause your baby to have allergies to food.

I was brainwashed (in a good way, mostly) by multiple sources, including my Lamaze teacher/lactation consultant, health articles, etc. I was so adamant that I would not use formula -- until little Zachary at 2 months old was not thriving and almost admitted to the hospital because I did not have enough milk to feed him.

When I realized this I went to the store and bought formula to save my baby's life. At the same time, a friend ordered the ingredients for homemade formula for me from Radiant Life. Zachary took commercial formula while I got educated and brave enough to trust raw milk for my baby.

I started slowly, gradually increasing the ratio of the homemade formula and eliminating the commercial one. It took about two months to have Zachary exclusively on the homemade formula. He loved it then and he loves it now!

Just on the formula and an occasional raw egg yolk he reached 23 pounds at one year! I am so grateful to have witnessed this miracle. My baby was starving but he not only made it to his year birthday, he got such a wholesome formula that even when my other children got sick, he did not. If he did it was almost not noticeable.

So maybe breast milk is best, but when it is not possible cow's milk can be for babies if you apply it to the homemade formula using raw milk. This formula did boost my baby's immune system and so far he has no allergies to any food we have given Zachary. I recommend this formula to anyone and for any baby. It is amazing!

Bernadette Gewondjan, Livermore, California