I've been researching what it would require to make my own baby formula for quite some time...it's always been a bit intimidating, especially before I knew what most of the ingredients were. The more I've learned, the less intimidating it's become, although I have to admit that there are still some "scary" things about doing this...mostly because it's an unknown for me.
I finally got all of the ingredients--of which there are many. Many, obscure ingredients. Yesterday I went to the grocery store and bought my raw milk and cream and this morning I took the plunge. All of the ingredients are pretty normal, other than the fermented cod liver oil--YUCK!! Yes, it smells as bad as it sounds. Thankfully, the other day when I took a dose (it's supposed to be REALLY good for you), I didn't really taste it.
Here's a link to the video of how to make this stuff. Homemade Milk-Based Baby Formula. There is great comfort in giving your baby something that contains ingredients that you've put in there, that you can pronounce and that don't require a chemistry degree to understand the process behind. Some of the ingredients serve to help the baby digest the formula more easily and some are there just to fortify the milk so the baby gets all of the nutrients s/he needs.
Aaron took it just fine at his nap this morning. It's hard to figure out the cost per ounce because of all of the ingredients...maybe one of these days soon I'll get ambitious and do the calculations. Here, a quart of RAW milk costs about $4.89. That will make 2 batches of this formula. The next most expensive ingredient is the fermented cod liver oil. I'm sure you could use other cod liver oil from the health food store...but the fermented is arguably far more nutritious and beneficial than the other stuff...not to mention less processed, yada, yada, yada. I bought it because I happen to have a loving, wonderful sugar daddy who lets me buy whatever I want--hehehe...just kidding. I bought it because that's what it called for and I wanted to make this the way it is supposed to be made, then I can tweak it from there. The one ingredient I did NOT do is the butter oil. It's INSANELY expensive (well, so is the cod liver oil at about $50/bottle-shipped!).
The other option with this formula that I am going to try next is to use PASTEURIZED, non-homogenized (otherwise known as CREAM TOP) whole milk, cultured with kefir grains. I don't have a whole lot of experience with raw milk, so I don't really have an opinion as to whether raw is better or safe or whatever. I know that it contains so much good stuff that is killed in the pasteurization process that helps it to be easily digested, which of course is a good thing...but I cannot speculate on the digestibility of raw milk versus pasteurized, non-homogenized, cultured milk. All I know is that the cream top milk is about half the cost of the raw...and in my opinion, money talks!
So there you have it...if you were ever interested in making your own baby formula, I'm being your guinea pig. So far, it's a lot less "weird" than I expected!
No comments:
Post a Comment