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Gastropod

The Milk of Life

Gastropod

Cynthia Graber and Nicola Twilley

Arts, Science, History, Food

4.73.7K Ratings

🗓️ 21 June 2022

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

No matter what your diet’s like today, we all likely started life eating the same thing: breast milk, formula milk, or a bit of both. But both of these products aren’t always easy to come by. Breastfeeding can be difficult or impossible for some parents, and formula milk isn’t always safe, affordable, or even available — as we’re seeing in the US, where formula milk is currently 70 percent out-of-stock. This episode, we tell the story of how we got here, and we explore what we should we do to make feeding babies easier in the future. Along the way, we find out what makes human milk—or "white blood," as it perhaps should be known—so unique, as well as why Parisian attitudes to feeding infants in the 1800s made it known as a city with no children. We've also got the story of when formula was first invented, the dirty tricks used to market it, and the competing pressures and changing advice that have swung the pendulum from "breast is best" to formula and back again. Listen in for the story behind the news, the tale of our first and most essential food. We need your help! We’re conducting an audience survey to hear from you. The information you share is important to help us keep making the podcast and, we hope, keep making it better! Head to Gastropod.com/survey to participate. We really appreciate it.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

The Out of Stock Rate for Baby Formula in the US was more than 40% at the beginning of

0:07.6

the month.

0:08.6

My sister picked me up some in our bad day yesterday.

0:10.7

My dad up in Thornton the other day.

0:12.4

Ashley Lane in Colorado is one of the many mom struggling to find the formula her infants

0:17.2

on needs.

0:18.2

The worsening baby formula shortage has become every parent's worst nightmare, searching

0:23.7

high and low, only to find empty store shelves.

0:27.6

I bottle feed and you cannot find it anywhere.

0:30.4

I have to go all the way to the field to get her formula.

0:32.9

It's scary.

0:34.9

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've undoubtedly heard that getting hold of

0:39.4

formula milk to feed your baby in the US right now is way harder than scoring tickets

0:44.9

to a Billy Eilish concert.

0:46.6

It was already 40% out of stock in March and then it went up to 70% out of stock by early

0:52.3

June.

0:53.3

But in March, because one company at one factory makes a full quarter of all the infant

0:57.5

formula in the US.

0:59.1

In February, the plant was shut down because of contamination issues there that had led

1:02.6

to the death of as many as nine babies, according to the most recent information.

1:06.6

And so that plant is now starting to start production again, but it will be months before

1:12.9

they are up to full production and in the meantime millions of people around the United

...

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