Baby food for thought

Baby food for thought

·          

Let mothers feed their babies for as long as they could. Efforts to feed every new-born baby with a ‘scientific’ formula instead of the God-given mother’s milk should stop for the common good. When governments are in cahoots with the industry mankind suffers

“Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others.
Unsuccessful people are always asking, “What's in it for me?”— Brian Tracy

 

I understand that there are efforts to feed every new-born baby with a ‘scientific’ formula instead of the God-given mother’s milk. In the unholy nexus between the greedy industry and the corrupt government agencies to try and sell this new idea to the gullible public, the real unsuspecting victims are the yet to be born future generations. When something is advertised in the name of the holy ‘science’ especially of the western variety that we, Indians, venerate as gospel truth, truth and reality take a back seat. Let us, for a change, examine the reality behind the new-born babies and their natural food. Let us not fall a prey to this heavy industrial advertisement. Advertisement is the bane of mankind’s present misery. There have been thinkers even in the west who had warned us against falling prey to advertisement from time to time. John Kenneth Galbraith was one such giant in the field who had warned us as far back as 1958 in his book, The Affluent Society thus:

 

Galbraith argued that in our societies’ wants and desires are created by the very process through which they are satisfied. Galbraith feels that corporations do not advertise to inform us about products that might satisfy our own pre-determined desires. Rather, they use advertising and marketing “to bring into being wants that previously did not exist.” Galbraith describes this “the dependence effect,” and argues that this is an indictment of the entire system of capitalistic production, which is “no more defensible than a town doctor routinely running over pedestrians in order to keep the hospital beds full”.

 

Poor Galbraith, may his soul rest in peace, did not know that disease mongering by various cunning methods is what the medical business does these days to fill their hospital beds and their coffers. In a full issue of the famous medical science journal, PLOSmedicine, the editor Ray Moynihan, had published eleven articles on this art of disease mongering. The above-mentioned efforts to sell infant formulae for baby feeding are another one of that disease mongering efforts right from the time of birth! Makes very good business sense. Every new born will, per force, become a patient. What better method could be there to fill the hospital beds and our coffers than this novel idea?

 

Human beings do not have milk digesting enzymes after weaning from mother’s milk. Mother’s milk is specially designed for the new born babies with special qualities. It is the only method that the mother transfers her own immune bodies to her baby to keep it safe during infancy. An infant does not have pancreatic lipase enzyme to digest fat. So mother’s milk is one of those fats that could be digested by salivary enzymes in the mouth. As the infant sucks the breast the milk gets digested in the mouth and then gets absorbed. The ONLY other fat that can be digested by salivary enzymes in the mouth is the fat in cocoanut oil. Mother’s milk and cocoanut oil contain the same fatty acids—sodium mono-laureates. Mono-lauric acid is the fatty acid that goes to make immune bodies to protect us against diseases. Any infant feed should and can only have cocoanut as the fat base. Other fats, if used, might damage the baby’s system. Moral of this story is that mother’s milk is the only sane and healthy food for an infant. No food, however scientifically prepared by our industry, can ever replace mother’s milk. The best alternative would be to create breast milk banks to collect excess milk from those that have too much milk to feed babies who either have lost their mothers or whose mothers do not make enough milk. Ideally the baby could be fed breast milk for as long as possible. If a baby gets mother’s milk for more than two years it should remain healthy all through its life.

 

Milk from other animals is not good food and is threatening to be a time-bomb, provoking powerful anti-bodies against many of our organs, especially the pancreas. One of the important causes of excess diabetes in society could be traced to drinking milk from other species. Our village cows, without the hump on their back, are less antigenic compared the large Jersey cows. Milk needs to be curdled before being consumed to reduce the antigenicity in denatured protein in curds and butter milk. If we learn to observe nature we will soon realize that no animal drinks the milk of another species in nature. How could man alone drink other animal milk with impunity? From altruistic sense also it looks bad. We are robbing the calf of its share of its mother’s milk. For the lay readers one fact could make lots of sense in this area.

 

Observe a calf as soon as it is born. It jumps out and runs. Human baby needs almost a year and more to do that. If we give our infants the milk with such powerful enzymes that make the calf walk away almost after birth the long-term results could be dangerous. In addition, today one does not get natural cow’s milk in the market, thanks to the new white revolution. The greedy industry encourages dairy farmers to use powerful hormones to boost milk out put. Most of the former are growth hormones which will have disastrous consequences in human youngsters! In addition, mastitis is a common disease in dairies. On an average 10% of the cows get mastitis every day. The present algorithm for treatment is to put ciprofloxacin, a powerful antibiotic worth nearly Rs8,000, into the cow’s udder to contain the germs there. The milk of that cow shall not be used for at least a week after the cow gets better. How many farmers would do that with their greed for more money? So our milk could be full of antibiotics and growth hormones! It is not surprising that we generate dangerous superbugs in society which are now posing a great threat to human life.

If one treats nature as mother, nature feeds and protects us; if we, on the contrary, use nature as our mistress, she will kick us in the teeth. That is what she is doing now, thanks to man’s proclivity for comfort and his greed! Let mothers feed their babies for as long as they could. Their shape does not go bad. In fact, they get better health by breast feeding. Breast cancer incidence does go down. More babies one feeds better would be one’s health and longer will be the life. Let us bring forth a healthy generation with natural resources. Science can never win over nature and make better products any day.
Western science shall not be our master; rather let us use it for our good only. Industry could still make money ethically. Let them not gang up with the governments to harm the populace. When governments are in cahoots with the industry mankind suffers. Formula feeding should stop for the common good.

 

“He who is not contented with what he has, would not be contented with what he would like to have” —Socrates

More from Dr BM Hegde

 

(Professor Dr BM Hegde, a Padma Bhushan awardee in 2010, is an MD, PhD, FRCP (London, Edinburgh, Glasgow & Dublin), FACC and FAMS. He is also Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of the Science of Healing Outcomes, Chairman of the State Health Society's Expert Committee, Govt of Bihar, Patna. He is former Vice Chancellor of Manipal University at Mangalore and former professor for Cardiology of the Middlesex Hospital Medical School, University of London.)

__._,_.___