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Comment by h2odragon | Hacker News Reader

Another: https://jeffreycarter.substack.com/p/no-one-is-talking-about...

Few seem to want to talk about this, they want to talk about how coming shortages will best be solved by giving them power or at the least listening to their advice.

For all the "Baby formula shortage" media coverage, how many stories have included a recipe for alternatives to commercial formula? Mostly I've seen admonitions to not try making baby food at home, which is incredibly useless for people trying to feed kids.

I'm seeing fields choked with weeds, because the Crop Production company that leases the land decided they're doing half a "no till" planting this year without herbicide; because that'll get them their crop failure insurance payment. I suspect they will bail on some of next year's leases or at least lower rates because of reduced fertility, too.

"Fertilizer export restrictions" started happening last fall; this was all visible writing on the wall well before Ukraine got invaded. It sounds "conspiracy theorist" to say there's a plan in operation; but it's hard to say that there is not.

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> For all the "Baby formula shortage" media coverage, how many stories have included a recipe for alternatives to commercial formula? Mostly I've seen admonitions to not try making baby food at home, which is incredibly useless for people trying to feed kids.

Thanks for pointing this out. It's like we've forgotten how to function as humans in some respect.

Baby formula isn't some magical combination of ingredients. And I get it, authorities are wary to recommend recipes because of the risk of people fucking it up. But when people are out of options they'll likely make worse decisions, like watering down formula.

Baby formula isn't some magical combination of ingredients.

Some of it is for those with metabolic problems. Abbott makes one type which very recently the government has taken action about, but each recipient has be vetted to get it, I believe it's from non-FDA regulated production in Europe.

I mean, that's fine, but how many babies need that kind of formula? And parents with babies that do need that kind of formula are probably well aware of that.

If you Google "how to make homemade baby formula", basically every article is how experts strongly recommend against it. And there are articles like "Why following TikTok influencers' baby formula recipes is a terrible idea."

No shit following TikTok baby formula recipes is a horrible idea. But if a detailed recipe for age-appropriate "standard" baby formula were published by experts, my guess is that it wouldn't contain fairy dust.

I can commiserate somewhat with these "experts", though, because this is a fairly common case where what is good advice for an individual can be bad advice for the masses. That is, if you're a reasonably intelligent person, it's probably not that hard to make your own baby formula. But if, say, at least 20% of people are not reasonably intelligent, experts will err on the side of "lowest common denominator" advice.

Exactly, babies have been eating for an extremely long time, far longer than boxes and bottles have been around and filled with the "only way to feed the babies".

In the old days, the alternative to store bought baby formula has not been a home-made one, it has rather been a wet nurse. At the time, people had more kids, so there were usually wet nurses available close by.

Goats milk

Which is associated with anemia in infants....

In the pediatrician's advice I link to in this subthread, there's a "Common mistakes to be aware of at all ages" section, and about that:

"Goat's milk contains very little folate and its use as a primary calorie source causes megaloblastic anemia."

Cows milk over 32 oz/day will cause iron deficiency, and "In children this is a hypercoagulable state and can cause cerebral venous sinus thrombosis. I have see this."

Substitutes for human milk designed for human consumption turn out not to be trivial.

Also, many kids died.

Babies have also been dying for a very long time too. I would be wary of citing it. Some people also have damned good reasons not to breastfeed like medication or diseases that would spread via milk.

When a mother doesn't want to or cannot safely breastfeed there is still actual food that a baby can eat. This isn't nearly as daunting or complicated as it may appear at first glance. People really have been doing this for a long time - safely without their babies dying.

I've seen people here say they have learned how to feed their babies on tiktok. For a place better than tiktok, there is a ton of information on WebMD showing how to quickly and safely make baby food.

google.com/search?q=webmd+baby+food+recipes

This is about babies that are ready to transition to solid foods. Not a replacement for formula.

That might be what you want to comment about, but that isn't what "the thread is about." The thread has been discussing a shortage of formula and the safety and efficacy of replacing formula with a different substance for babies to eat.

I mean your link. You seem to think that webmd article describes how to make baby formula. It does not. It describes how to transition your baby to solid foods once it is ready. They’re not the same thing. If you follow the recipes there for a young baby you will likely kill the baby.

>I mean your link. You seem to think that webmd article describes how to make baby formula.

I'm not sure what you saw, but I never posted a webmd link.

> For a place better than tiktok, there is a ton of information on WebMD showing how to quickly and safely make baby food.

> google.com/search?q=webmd+baby+food+recipes

Extremely likely that the first hit will be: https://www.webmd.com/baby/how-to-make-baby-food

Even if you’re going to pretend this isn’t what you meant, the claim that web md has a ton of information on how to make baby food is false, in the context of formula.

> Even if you’re going to pretend this isn’t what you meant, the claim that web md has a ton of information on how to make baby food is false, in the context of formula.

I'm not pretending anything. Look at what I wrote (which you actually quoted). "For a place better than tiktok, there is a ton of information on WebMD showing how to quickly and safely make baby food."

I put the link for a google search and referenced the list of results. You chose to only look at the first result to feed a baby. Did you click the button, "I'm Feeling Lucky" that automatically takes you to the first link? That's completely unreasonable and not why I posted that search.

Furthermore, I never said that WebMD shows how to make baby formula.

No, I think you’re full of shit and trying to change your story. Show me the web md link that’s shows you how to quickly and safely make baby food that you intended to demonstrate with your link. Explain how it makes sense contextually for the shortage of formula, which you yourself pointed out was the issue at hand.

A baby dying of starvation is probably much worse than the risk of giving it wrong formula. And have you ever heard a hungry baby crying? It's not something you can wait long for.

Elsewhere in this discussion there's a Reddit posting by a pediatrician https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/uvcijm/a_pediatri.... Under four months, home made formula:

"Often has a dangerously different osmolality. Infants eat whatever they are given and have dumb kidneys, so are prone to hyponatremia or hypernatremia and every pediatrician has seen a baby die this way. Don’t do it."

See that and other discussions here about the differences between infant (above) and toddler formula.

> Often has a dangerously different osmolality

That makes sense, but again, for anyone who has ever taken a chemistry class, creating a solution with a known osmolality is not difficult - basically all you need is a scale. But I also don't doubt that rando TikTok recipes are wildly dangerous.

And the age range argument doesn't really make sense if there were a standard recipe for "human breast milk replacement". I'm pretty sure human breast milk doesn't change composition as a child ages, and no one is arguing you can't breast feed toddlers because the milk is for the wrong age.

Commercial formula kinda is a magical combination of ingredients, including a substantial number of supplements that aren’t gonna be available to home cooks. It’s better to substitute homemade than water down formula, no doubt, but you can understand why newspapers don’t want to publish a recipe knowing that it will send some number of babies to the doctor with an iron deficiency.

> Commercial formula kinda is a magical combination of ingredients, including a substantial number of supplements that aren’t gonna be available to home cooks.

Do you have a citation for that? I see all these articles that just say "don't try it yourself, it's too hard", but I'd like to know which specific ingredients are impossible to obtain.

I wouldn't claim that the required supplements are literally not available on the commercial market, but the FDA requirements (https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cdrh/cfdocs/cfcfr/cfr...) include over a dozen nutrients to track, some within a relatively narrow safety range. It's not practical to expect that stressed, busy new parents are gonna buy all these supplements, much less break out their scales and carefully measure 2-7 micrograms of selenium per 100 kcal.

It's surprising our species made it the first 8 million years without the FDA...

A lot of us didn’t! Infant mortality used to be orders of magnitude higher, and malnutrition in babies who couldn’t be breastfed adequately was a big contributor.

Now imagine if they had cheap vegetables, milk and blenders.

This is very dangerous. Do not give advice on things you don’t know. It’s not just a vague nutrition profile you’re trying to hit.

Stop being ridiculous. It's not advice, it's an argument. Find your revipes elsewhere.

Well it’s a shit argument. You cannot create safe baby formula with vegetables and a blender.

> It's not practical to expect that stressed, busy new parents are gonna buy all these supplements, much less break out their scales and carefully measure 2-7 micrograms of selenium per 100 kcal.

Brown Rice contains selenium. Even when not breastfeeding, real foods contain micro and macro nutrients that are beneficial for babies.

> Brown Rice contains selenium. Even when not breastfeeding, real foods contain micro and macro nutrients that are beneficial for babies.

Slight variation in too little nutrients, or too much, or in forms that aren’t absorbed at the intended rate can be very dangerous. Throw in some rice? Ok now there’s extra sodium in there. The milk does too. Uh oh. Suddenly this is a complicated optimization problem requiring fine measurements and specific blending techniques.

I can also buy 20 proof ethanol at my local gas station. It'd kill me, but hey way is gasoline any different than gin. They're both 10% ethanol.

This writeup on Reddit has a decent breakdown of the pitfalls: https://www.reddit.com/r/medicine/comments/uvcijm/a_pediatri...

Looks like osmolality is a major concern. Good luck explaining that in a 30 second clip on CNN.

> Good luck explaining that in a 30 second clip on CNN.

That's pretty much exactly my point, as I mentioned in another comment.

I'm having a difficult time believing that the ingredients or measuring devices are so difficult to replicate at home that it would be impossible to do. I think the more likely explanation is a large portion of the population, put generously, "lacks attention to detail", and so homemade formula would be dangerous for them.

Here's a good analogy. Saline solution (not disinfecting solution, just normal saline) for contact lenses is not complicated. It's salts and water. At one point it was possible to buy salt packets and mix it with water to make contact lense saline solution. However, it was critical the water be purified, distilled water.

Of course, a decent portion of the population thought plain tap water was good enough and ended up going blind, so the FDA banned the salt packets, and you can now only buy premixed saline.

So the FDA went out and said "Mixing your own saline solution can be really dangerous, don't do it." And they're right, mixing your own saline can be really dangerous, if you can't follow directions.

Yeah, even if it's possible in theory at home (I don't know, won't research it, and think it could very well be either - I think it's very likely the "100% correct" version isn't possible), it will result in harm statistically. Thus it's not standard of care, and recommending it will result in very expensive malpractice lawsuits.

Caffeine powder is also illegal these days.

It’s crazy that in the face of health authorities saying don’t do this, it’s dangerous, your reaction is “prove it”, rather than doing some research on your own to counter your skepticism. The lack of trust in public institutions is deeply saddening.

The problem with baby formula is that it needs to contain precise balances of nutrition in specific forms that can be absorbed by the body in specific ways. Much in the way that a calorie is not a calorie is not a calorie, a nutrient is not a nutrient is not a nutrient.

Water down your baby formula? Now it’s different. Babies are sensitive. This could be dangerous.

This took such little effort to research on my own. The bar is so low.

Breast milk is unique. In the past kids had wet nurses as a backup. And when they didn’t, infant mortality was very high.

If you just tel people you can go make this shit at home, a lot of babies will likely die.

> It’s crazy that in the face of health authorities saying don’t do this, it’s dangerous, your reaction is “prove it”, rather than doing some research on your own to counter your skepticism. The lack of trust in public institutions is deeply saddening.

I 100% disagree. I'm not an idiot. I can read a recipe, even a complicated recipe. And I'm not even saying they're wrong. I'm just asking for some simple example of why, for someone capable of following the instructions exactly, this would be too difficult to do at home. Not the right equipment? Fine. Ingredients that are not readily available? Fine.

But to go with some hand wavy bullshit, basically saying "Sorry stupid peon, this is just too complicated for you", is just dumb. On a site called "Hacker News" I think it's incredibly sad that a request for a more detailed explanation is met with "I think that's crazy".

> I 100% disagree. I'm not an idiot. I can read a recipe, even a complicated recipe

This thread has shown me how many people think baby formula is just some complex recipe that requires pureeing the correct vegetables in the correct ratios.

Making infant formula is more akin to making medicine/drug than table food.

We have home drugs (meth, heroin, cocaine, etc). Yes, they can be made safely, but they often not.

Well for one, do some fucking research, as I suggested in the very passage you quoted, before you make bold assertions about what’s reasonable. The answers to your questions are easily found.

You do not have the ingredients. It’s not just foods. You cannot make safe baby formula from foods. You don’t have the equipment to produce it. It requires specific mixing and heating and what not to arrive at specific consistencies and sterility so that it is absorbable by the body correctly. You don’t have the measurement equipment to get the ratios correct to the margins needed. You don’t have the quality controls to check that they are ok for things like acidity. You don’t have the expertise to evaluate outcomes. You apparently don’t have the inclination to research it on your own either so it’s triply dangerous.

In the 20s people started using milk based formula. Babies got scurvy and rickets. They threw in orange juice. They got bacterial infections.

If you want to roll the dice with your baby’s health because you think you’re smarter than the government go ahead. Here’s Wikipedia, the simplest lowest bar of research you were unwilling to do but complain about either way. It has the basic progression. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_formula

Flour and milk mostly. Go nuts.

Just saw this earlier today: https://www.insider.com/tiktok-doctors-say-diy-formula-recip...

Basically there are viral recipes going around, and this supports that formula in particular is something that we cannot trust the average person to diy. Infants are extremely vulnerable and have unusual dietary requirements.

People will die due to this.

EDIT: I see this is contentious. Check the reddit post and go argue with them: https://old.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/comments/v07nh0/tiktok_...

That's all the more reason to publish and promote good instructions.

Good instructions to a lay populace aren't necessarily helpful. Babies are pretty fragile. Slightly undercooked ingredients, slightly improper ratios, or just substitutions made out of ignorance can kill them. It's not DIY chocolate milk powder. A slightly off recipe or preparation won't just taste funny while being otherwise safe.

I think people would trust the government and authorities generally more, if those authorities weren't constantly lying to them. The authorities could say "Here is a rigorous procedure for DIY formula. We strongly recommend against using this, except in an emergency, because slight deviations could result in harm or death for the baby." Instead, they seem to give the impression that DIY formula is never advisable or borderline impossible - which is probably wrong, and that misrepresentation makes people distrust authorities more generally.

A rigorous procedure involves precise measurements, ph testing, and other things many people do not understand let alone have the capability to execute.

But could easily attempt anyway and fuck up

I don't know anything about the safe DIY manufacture of baby formula, but, even if I assumed what you are saying is true, and I'm pretty confident you're wrong, that isn't even an argument. We should deny people good instructions, forcing those who want to try to use bad instructions, because some people might incorrectly follow the good instructions?

You can't provide "good instructions" for something that needs high levels of control in the manufacture. The process is as much a part of the recipe as the ingredients. It's much more rational to put resources into fixing the shortages rather than having people get their babies sick because they didn't completely sterilize a pot because it wasn't explicitly outlined in the recipe.

I see two parts to your comment.

The first part is obviously wrong. You can provide good instructions for things that need a high level of control. Baby formula is not made by magic and I doubt very much that it needs some impossible level of precision to create.

The second part of your comment is simply a false dichotomy. Releasing high quality instructions would not affect the rate at which the baby formula shortage is addressed.

There is no safe DIY manufacture of baby formula. It’s just not something you should attempt without being an expert. Step one is to become an expert.

The reason to not put out a set of instructions that people cannot follow is because they cannot follow it, and those that attempt to follow it will likely make serious mistakes. It would do more harm than good to put out a government sanctioned recipe, no matter how many warnings.

That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

That applies to assertions of fact, not reasoned arguments. There is plenty of evidence that incorrectly produced baby formula is dangerous. There are many studies showing the narrow range of nutrition and form of the baby formula that is safe.

Yes, and the claim that there are no safe DIY formula instructions is an assertion of fact. The question of whether incorrectly produced formula could be dangerous was never at issue.

Well we’ve demonstrated that the requirements are very strict, that manufacture standards are precise and include steps not available to laypeople such as ph testing, and that the outcome of a bad creation is potentially fatal. So it seems reasonable to say it follows that there are no safe DIY formula instructions because DIY implies lack of expertise which is required to understand the points listed above.

You haven't demonstrated any of that. You've asserted it, as I mentioned, without evidence.

It's amazing how people people fail to understand that making baby formula is the equivalent to making a drug. Yes, you can make coke, meth, and heroin at home.

However, it's also extremely easy to mess it up and kill yourself.

As others have said, it is impossible to verify your statement because the verification method is kept hidden because "it would be dangerous".

You can easily find a list of many steps formula producers go through.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is the same bullshit that happened with masks early in the pandemic. Instead of being truthful and saying "It's really important that there be enough masks for hospitals, and we just don't know if masks for the lay populace are helpful because there haven't been enough studies yet," authorities lied and said "masks don't work for the general population". Zeynep Tufekci's article on this topic got it exactly right IMO: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/17/opinion/coronavirus-face-...

>>It's like we've forgotten how to function as humans in some respect.

It is not that we have forgotten, the social and governmental structures have been for a long time pushing for dependence upon corporations / government and less self reliance.

Self Reliance is something that is to be socially mocked, "survivalist", "prepper", etc are seen as derogatory terms.

Even community level reliance has systemically been rejected in favor of top down corporate and/or national government level programs to provide for people.

I would mainly blame capitalism and globalization. It’s very hard to stick to your principles when you can get everything for a 10th of the price/effort from Walmart. It’s also completely impossible to be self reliant in any mid sized or bigger metro area because you just don’t have enough land to produce food and energy.

globalism sure... capitalism... that would require a more nuance explanation of what you mean by "capitalism" since that is huge subject often misused by people that do no understand that all ownership of private capital and means of production is "capitalism" under which there can be good and bad effects.

So blaming "capitalism" for anything likely means the person is ignorant on the topic of economics, or is speaking about one type of capitalism (say corporatism, or crony capitalism)

capitalism as an economic system is a foundation for liberty, one can not have a free society with out capitalism in some form.

> since that is huge subject often misused by people that do no understand that all ownership of private capital and means of production is "capitalism" under which there can be good and bad effects.

I would argue that this misses the point. Capitalism isn't just a pile of physical capital. If it was, it would be impossible to result in oppression since physical capital must be maintained and it can be reproduced. Nobody would have any right to complain. Just think about it, would you be jealous of Jeff Bezoz' maintenance bill for his mega yacht? No, you are "jealous" that he has exclusive monopoly rights that restrict your own rights and perhaps even doom you to poverty.

It would be more appropriate to call "capitalism" the obsession to put the interests of capital and its owners above all other interests. This means, capital should be allowed to override the basic needs of other humans. Capital should have the right to deny others the ability to obtain shelter or food. Because of capital it should be possible to deny others the ability to trade or be employed.

>capitalism as an economic system is a foundation for liberty, one can not have a free society with out capitalism in some form.

Now you have trapped yourself inside a network of contradictions. If capital overrides all your decisions, how can you consider yourself free? How can a society where only one special groups interests are being heard, call itself free?

No, instead of doubling down on taking ever more people's rights away, we should be doing the opposite. We should be striving to give everyone the ability to help themselves, decide for themselves and to live their lives according to the best of their abilities.

This is where the paths diverge. You are confusing market economies with capitalism, which is merely a perversion of market economies. A free market is inherently anti-capitalist because it values the freedoms of its participants over any special interest groups. A free market inherently denies capital the ability to deny other people the ability to obtain shelter or food. It inherently denies capital the ability to prevent others from trading and forcing them into unemployment.

No, a free market isn't free as in gratis. It's free as in freedom.

>>It would be more appropriate to call "capitalism" the obsession to put the interests of capital and its owners above all other interests. This means, capital should be allowed to override the basic needs of other humans. Capital should have the right to deny others the ability to obtain shelter or food.

Completely incorrect, unless you completely perverse the idea of capitalism which I suspect you are attempting with disingenuous argumentation and emotional rhetoric

Capitalism, on its own, does not result in "oppression" as that requires external non-economic factors often based around government for oppression to occur.

Also I am not jealous Jeff Bezoz, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, or any other rich person at all, in either strawman you have presented here

>>If capital overrides all your decisions, how can you consider yourself free? How can a society where only one special groups interests are being heard, call itself free?

I have not contradicted myself at all, you have massively over reached and attributed positions to me well outside that of my comment. Further you have now confused capitalism, an economic system, with government power.

The only way for "only one special groups interests are being heard" would be for government to impose that restriction upon the population, that has nothing to do with capitalism.

>>You are confusing market economies with capitalism

Market economies, including Free Market Economies are part of a capitalist economic system, so if you believe they are not I point you back to my original comment. A Free Market is capitalism, So is Crony Capitalism, but Crony Capitalism is not a Free Market.

Stated Differently, All free markets are capitalist economies, but not all capitalist economies are Free Markets.

I support free market capitalism

It isn't some vast conspiracy, it is that specialization by definition does it better. Literal cottage industry couldn't compete. That is what being able to buy better tools and outcomes gets you, industrialization. Memetically people are still pissed off about the change centuries later.

Specialization for sure is part of the equation, but I dont think it is the full picture. Also to get to a dependency problem one does not have to claim a vast conspiracy, often created as unintended consequence of well meaning government programs, or policy shifts that create incentives for corporations to act in a manner that the result is a dependency instead of self reliance.

In the context here specialization means people are not sustenance farming working 16 hours a day creating 100% of their food themselves, however the other extreme of this is total dependence of your food from outside of your region, and the ability to prep, cook, etc you food to others.

There is a balance there, where by a person may not grow all of their food, but has a garden (even in indoor garden) to grow some things... Or buys from local farms, and learns how to cook their own meals instead of total dependence on prepared meals either from the store (i.e tv dinners etc) or from restaurants / fast food...

I know a lot of people where more than 80% of their food intake is cooked prepared for them, and the 20% that is "from scratch" cooking is like bacon and eggs level cooking...

That is with out getting into direct dependency on government...

Sure. Until the MBA-ification made sure everything runs as lean as possible… and then everyone wonders where supply chain issues are getting worse.

> Memetically people are still pissed off about the change centuries later.

Because specialization gave up autonomy, with zero corresponding accountability in return, so capital holders got most of the upside with none of the downside once positioned as too big to fail, and dependent stakeholders got short-term time resource benefits while their grandchildren onwards got exposed to oligopolistic pricing power, and externalities like fragile supply chain ramifications pushed upon them. Snarking like this in shallow analyses is exactly what Soros warned about with reflexivity.

> Baby formula isn't some magical combination of ingredients. And I get it, authorities are wary to recommend recipes because of the risk of people fucking it up. But when people are out of options they'll likely make worse decisions, like watering down formula.

There was a large drop in infant mortality in the US about the time commercial baby formula caught on. Draw your own conclusions.

Source?

> Baby formula isn't some magical combination of ingredients.

This is overlooking an incredibly important piece - composition and reliability. Infants, particularly those under 6 months, have very specific nutritional needs. A subset of that population has extremely strict nutritional needs. Even in a health baby, "stretching" the formula with too much water can cause a dangerous drop in electrolyte levels.

For the average person, it's going to be extremely difficult to source, process, mix, and hydrate ingredients (and test it all) to properly feed their baby.

----

To put things in perspective, toddler formula is _extremely_ similar to infant formula, but the ratios are slightly different. This slightly difference means you cannot safely use toddler formula as a replacement for infant formula.

So, if infant formula is unavailable the course of action you recommend is simply letting the child go and making another one, because it won't be possible to guarantee that any alternative food source is 100% perfect?

That's the weird thing about these interactions. If someone's asking for an alternative to infant formula - because they can't get any - the situation is already unsafe. Starvation has a 100% fatality rate.

Infant formula isn't part of the scenario being discussed. Alternatives are to be compared against starvation, as that is part of the scenario being discussed. Do alternatives have a 100% fatality rate? No. So why all the weird 'there's just no viable alternative' comments?

I'm tempted not to respond because you're clearly not applying a good faith argument here. Nobody in this thread, besides you, is suggesting that it is preferable to let a baby die than to feed them partial nutrients. Of course, if your child is literally starving, you should look to a less than ideal, short term solution.

This thread is in the context of "why isn't the media providing alternatives". I'm refuting the point that "it's simple and easy to replace baby formula" - which supports your argument, highlighting the severe and dire consequences of this situation.

I'm making an argument that highlights the severity of this situation for parents with young infants.

>Of course, if your child is literally starving, you should look to a less than ideal, short term solution.

Yes. That's the issue we're having here. People are encountering that situation of being unable to find formula, meaning that their children are literally at risk of starving, asking for alternatives and being told 'there's just no viable alternative' by the media as though that information will make formula appear out of thin air. They are looking for that less than ideal short term solution from the media, which is responding oddly.

It is quite simple to provide short-term replacements for infant formula. Famine relief, missionary and other charities do have reliable and nutritious recipes for baby formula alternatives that can be made in bush conditions and over open fires in metal pots.

> 'there's just no viable alternative' by the media

This isn't the media's job. Their recommendation is to talk with your doctor. This is realistically the only safe suggestion since all of the alternatives are bad.

> Famine relief, missionary and other charities do have reliable and nutritious recipes for baby formula alternatives that can be made in bush conditions and over open fires in metal pots.

Please, please, please, cite your source on this. I have a really hard time believing this as simple as "this one trick from Africa". I believe what you're referring to is literally infant formula. You're simply describing the process of sanitizing water then mixing in standard, powdered infant formula.

The introduction of formula to impoverished regions was extremely controversial. As mother's used formula, their milk production decreased. This forced them into a dependency on formula manufacturers or milk-donors (wet-nurses, milk-banks, etc). This would not be a problem if there were viable solutions.

------

EDIT: Lastly, I would like to point out that this isn't an argument about "feed the baby" or nothing. If you are that desperate to feed your baby, go to a fucking hospital. They _will_ be able to help you.

> This isn't the media's job.

I think maybe this is the problem both specifically here and more widely, there's a major outbreak of 'not their jobitis' going on. The media are 'not my jobbing' this and ignoring the fact that distributing health information has very much been the job of the media in the past.

Maybe a similar issue with the FDA who 'not my jobbed' the inspections of the facility and 'not my jobbed' the reopening inspections of the facility and 'not my jobbed' other things they could have been doing, such as distributing safe formula-replacement recipes.

Maybe - to take a tangent - a similar issue with the Uvalde police who 'not my jobbed' actually interacting with a scenario. Seems to be a whole rash of people forgetting you have to actually interact with the world and take actions if you want things to happen, not just observe and write reports.

> Their recommendation is to talk with your doctor.

That's purely because of liability.

> This is realistically the only safe suggestion

No, that's point of the contention here.

> Please, please, please, cite your source on this.

The recipes for infant milk start on page 93.

https://oxfamilibrary.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10...

> This isn't the media's job. Their recommendation is to talk with your doctor. This is realistically the only safe suggestion since all of the alternatives are bad.

I wish people would lay this blanket advice to rest, unless they are doctors themselves and can give relevant advice immediately. I live in Germany, a country that everyone praises for its healtcare system and it is incredibly hard to get a doctor's appointment here that is not months down the road. Sure there are emergency options, like the hospitals that you mention, but imagine what happens if millions of deperate people try to tap into the strategic formula reserves of hospitals...

During a catastrophic event, I absolutely expect the media to spread ideas for creative solutions. You can always say that talking to an expert is the best option, but what is plan B if plan A is no realistic option?

“…talk with your doctor. This is realistically the only safe suggestion since all of the alternatives are bad.“

What exactly do you think we did before baby formula even existed? Or doctors, for that matter? This absolute dependence on systems is disheartening. We need a drastic reconnection with nature.

> What exactly do you think we did before baby formula even existed?

Well, we breastfed.

Problem is that isn't actually a reliable solution since not all mothers produce milk at the quantities their child needs. This is particular true as a child grows, many mothers grow tired of breastfeeding and look to formula as an alternative. Problem is this deteriorates their milk production since the child is eating less breastmilk.

-----

The reality is this situation is primarily dangerous for mother's who cannot breastfeed or lack sufficient production - and require formula. There is no go, safe, reliable option because Option A (Breastmilk) is gone and Option B (Formula) is as well.

People keep acting like there _should_ be a backup to formula, without understanding that humans are the only animals on earth that have created an alternative to their naturally produced milk.

>People keep acting like there _should_ be a backup to formula

There are backups, which are safer than the alternative of starvation, which has a 100% fatality rate.

A homemade formula which killed 25% of children would still be 400% safer than the alternative of giving them nothing and having them all die.

>you cannot safely use toddler formula as a replacement for infant formula.

This needs to be repeated. Do not swap them.

My wife and I were trying to help a family by buying them formula - and we bought the wrong age range. It makes a big difference. Don't do it.

On a side note, we are going to donate the formula we can't use to a stranger. So. There's that.

I mean, that makes sense, but on the other hand, I'm pretty sure human breast milk doesn't change composition as a child ages. If it's possible to develop a formula that is "close to human breast milk as possible", the age range really shouldn't matter.

Actually, it changes a LOT over time. I'm a little removed from the breast feeding days, so I had to look it up. Here is a cool article [0].

I'll summarize some of the cool points. Breast milk changes to respond to 3 distinct ages of the baby. Newborn to 3ish days. 3ish days to 1 year. 1 year to "the end".

Milk changes to respond to growth spurts of your baby!

Milk changes to provide antibodies. Not covered in this article: it is hypothesized that kissing your baby can give the mom bacteria on the baby - and then the mom makes the antibodies for bacteria the baby was exposed to.

Milk changes throughout the day!

Milk changes in the middle of breast feeding

That's it. Those are the ones I enjoyed. Here is the link!!

[0] https://www.todaysparent.com/baby/breastfeeding/magical-ways...

Regardless of whether the formula changes/doesn't change is essentially irrelevant. As a baby grows, their diet grows as well. A toddler can get by on infant formula (though less than optimal).

This situation primarily impacts 0 to 4 months olds and secondarily 4 to 6 months old. It's less than ideal fora 6 to 12 month old to use a sub-par diet, but it's much less critical than in a newborn.

Basically, the newborn range is growing so quickly that small deficiency can have huge cascading effects. Old babies are a bit more resilient because they're growing a bit slower (relatively) and have more buffer in their reserves for certain things.

In my opinion, what you're arguing is equivalent to saying "children should be allowed to drink alcohol. If it's safe for adults, it's safe for children".

>It's like we've forgotten how to function as humans

I like to bring it up whenever I run out of dishwasher soap: "I ran out of dishwasher soap so I used some liquid dish soap." I do it because it's always followed up with "Did it make a giant mess in your kitchen?" "No, I put a few drops of it in with a bunch of baking soda, worked like a charm!"

I had wondered what I would MacGyver for baby formula, if it were at all relevant to my life right now.

The fertilizer problems started with sanctions on Belarus which is 20% of the worlds potash as in potassium market, and got dire due to China, the US and Europe all messing up their natural gas markets. That's used to supply hydrogen atoms for the first step of nitrogen fertilizer, the most used by weight, in the Haber process which makes ammonia (NH3) using nitrogen from the air. A lot of entities, not just "Crop Production companies" are doing suboptimal things for the food supply due to the fertilizer crisis.

As for stores not providing baby formula recipes, I'd imagine they're worried about liability, and there are of course many other sources for them. Really, due to the Federal government's WIC program which is half the market, its import restrictions, and messed up FDA regulation it should be on them.

I say messed up because the FDA demonstrably wasn't serious about dealing with the Abbott Labs plant problem or getting it fixed quickly based on the timeline starting with the whistle blower, while they make it very hard to get into the business. Or the USDA's problem due to their policy of forcing states to grant a WIC monopoly to one formula manufacturer resulted in three companies having almost all the total US market with Abbott having the largest share, at the same time US prices being double those of Europe. Which isn't as strict about food safety but still seems to do OK.

A serious country would have done something to mitigate the shortage after they closed down Abbot's huge factory before there were bare shelves for months and it became a political problem in an election year.

Much of the regulations in the USA are mainly now used to keep the main businesses in those markets safe from competitors.

I'd strip the "now" from your statement, this goes back at least to the 1887 Interstate Commerce Commission and many subsidy attempts which generally didn't produce economically viable railways or steamship lines.

Regulatory capture is a universal problem as long as a government is involved in an economy, and it has to be if for no other reason than to collect taxes.

There's a term for this: Crony Capitalism

And before that, fascism Italian style, or national syndicalism as I see Wikipedia calls it. Hard to say we in the US aren't already there in many sectors where big companies work hand in glove with the Federal government such as much of the "surveillance state." Which the companies don't have much choice in acquiescing to unless their leaders want to end up in Federal prison like Qwest's Joseph Nacchio.

Going back to farming, the Federal government assumed near total control over a great of it in the New Deal, down to how much you could charge for selling a kosher chicken (A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corp. v. United States "the surname Schechter means "slaughter" in Yiddish, and specifically refers to a ritual slaughterer") and the two have been inextricably linked since then.

And until about now things have been a lot better, for before WWII at the same time food production was limited by diktat and there were newsreels of it being destroyed, the USDA also believed about a quarter of the nation was malnourished which was confirmed in the WWII draft. Which I've read was major factor in establishing the school lunch program.

With a century of experience with the US government policies bringing damage to the country’s food supply, I don’t understand why so many people think that FDA is somehow good now.

They could solve the baby formula immediately by just allowing import of European baby formula. Sure, it’s not been vetted by FDA, but unless you believe French or German babies are malnourished en masse, this is scarcely a good reason to prevent import in time of shortage.

Almost all (if not all) government regulatory agencies like the FDA has as their primary goal “no blame shall ever be possible to ascribe to us bureaucrats”. If they don’t emergency waiver European food then they can’t be blamed if something were to go wrong with it.

And if babies die of malnutrition that’s not their fault and won’t affect their performance review.

> There are rumors of diesel shortages and urea shortages. In order to operate a diesel engine on the road you have to use DEF fluid which is urea.

This isn't strictly true, you can remove the DEF emissions control system from most trucks for a small price and this even yields a small performance gain. In my state, this is quite common as there is no emissions testing. The emphasis on diesel/DEF shortages is greatly exaggerated and somewhat misguided, I think.

You can do a "DEF delete," but if you are caught you will be paying some major fines for EPA violations that will quickly exceed the value of the truck.

Do the DOT inspections at weigh stations not check for this? I know that older trucks are grandfathered as they never had it; generally vehicles are required to have all the original emissions controls intact.

You also will need to know how to reflash the engine computers, which will not be happy if expected emissions equipment is simply removed.

I think the point is that if there's a urea shortage, good governments would waive the DEF requirement until it ends, rather than effectively saying "sorry, it's illegal for you to drive that truck at any price".

> I think the point is that if there's a urea shortage, good governments would waive the DEF requirement until it ends,

Automotive EE here, this will ABSOLUTELY NOT happen.

Oh, I have no delusions that it will happen. I also have no delusions that our government is good.

It obvious possible to run diesel with out DEF.

And you “can” remove the def systems and cats.

But the real story is that all diesels on the road now use DEF/EGR systems and that isn’t going to change because of a shortage.

I would be interested in reading more of what you are reading.

> For all the "Baby formula shortage" media coverage, how many stories have included a recipe for alternatives to commercial formula?

Well, the reality is there isn't a good one. If there was, this issues wouldn't be so serious. Infant formula is truly a modern marvel - an accurate enough representation of breast milk. It lacks certain things (like antibodies), but can absolutely provide an infant correct nutrition. Too put things in perspective, toddler formula - which is very, very similar is considered a dangerous substitute since it does not contain the exact correct ratios and can lead to health issues.

To answer you question, the media does not have a recommendation because there simply isn't a good, safe recommendation.

It's hard to take any food shortage articles seriously when we feed >40% of the calories we grow to cattle alone.

Sure, more people might go hungry because we do not allocate food well.

But we are so far from actually running out of calories that the idea is ridiculous.

40% of corn grown goes to produce ethanol. [1] The silage by product is then sent to feed cattle.

[1] https://civileats.com/2022/02/14/how-corn-ethanol-for-biofue...

Sure but thinking that the American people don’t implode if the stores are empty and you’re sent a bag of corn every month for your calories is also not realistic.

You can grow other calories on the land you're growing corn for ethenol and livestock feed.

With the massive efficiency of corn its actually kinda hard to do that to the level you expect. Corn is very effective at turning space into starch.

What massive efficiency? You're feeding it to animals. 80% of the calories are immediately pooped out.

Which is why you could just feed it to people instead - or grow something else.

Solar panels destroy corn in terms of converting solar power to energy. Ethanol is geopolitical and special interests, definitely not efficient.

One way of looking at the fodder for cattle is that the human palatable parts of it are reserves. We can "downshift," downsize our herds and redirect that without redisman's "send you a bag of corn every month" (plus calcium hydroxide for nixtamalization) extreme which more belongs to something like a post-nuclear war scenario.

The big problem is going to be the places that don't have reserves of most anything including money, like the parts of the Middle East and thereabouts that normally get their wheat from Russia and the Ukraine, the latter long called "the breadbasket of the world."

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