Monday's Menu: Raw Milk Formula for Babies

When it comes to feeding our babies, mother's milk is always best. Although, it's definitely true that a mother's milk is only as good as the quality of her diet. If a Mom's diet is full of caffeine, sugar, trans fats, and lacking in vital nutrients, that means her milk will be as well. Trans fats particularly affect the fat content of a mother's milk, making it much more like skim milk for baby.

So the best option is for Mom to be following an extremely high-nutrient diet that gives baby optimal nutrients. Check out my former post with the Weston A. Price Foundation's recommendations for what foods pregnant & lactating women should eat.

However, there are some instances when no matter how great her diet is, Mom just can't breastfeed. Maybe it's because of illness, another pregnancy, or traveling. For example, when I got pregnant with our third baby (I'm now 5 months) and once I was about 12 weeks along, I simply wasn't making more than 1 oz. per feeding. Needless to say, our 9 month old was not very happy about this situation!

At this point I switched him to Weston A. Price's raw milk formula. He did so great on it and has been on it ever since. With Nathaniel, our older son, I also put him on this formula when I weaned him, and he stayed on it until he was almost 2.5! I really give this formula credit for the exceptional health of my little guys.

The formula is made up of raw milk & cream, and a whole bunch of truly excellent fats for growing little ones- coconut oil, olive oil, sunflower oil, cod liver oil, (I usually leave this out and give it separately on a spoon!) nutritional yeast for various vitamins, acerola cherry powder for Vitamin C, and probiotics for a healthy digestive and immune system.

I've copied the formula from the Weston A. Price's website. You can view the original article here.

Note: I've always made this formula for older babies, so I usually leave out the whey, gelatin, and lactose. If I were making it for a baby younger than 9 months, I would add all of those ingredients. :)

Raw Milk Baby Formula

Makes 36 ounces.

"Our milk-based formula takes account of the fact that human milk is richer in whey, lactose, vitamin C, niacin, and long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids compared to cow's milk but leaner in casein (milk protein). The addition of gelatin to cow's milk formula will make it more digestible for the infant. Use only truly expeller-expressed oils in the formula recipes, otherwise they may lack vitamin E."

The ideal milk for baby, if he cannot be breastfed, is clean, whole raw milk from old-fashioned cows, certified free of disease, that feed on green pasture. For sources of good quality milk, see www.realmilk.com or contact a local chapter of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

If the only choice available to you is commercial milk, choose whole milk, preferably organic and unhomogenized, and culture it with a piima or kefir culture to restore enzymes (available from G.E.M. Cultures 253-588-2922 or http://www.gemcultures.com).

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole raw cow's milk, preferably from pasture-fed cows
• 1/4 cup homemade liquid whey (See recipe for whey, below) Note: Do NOT use powdered whey or whey from making cheese (which will cause the formula to curdle). Use only homemade whey made from yoghurt, kefir or separated raw milk.
• 4 tablespoons lactose¹
• 1/4 teaspoon bifidobacterium infantis²
• 2 or more tablespoons good quality cream (preferably not ultrapasteurized), more if you are using milk from Holstein cows
• 1/2 teaspoon unflavored high-vitamin or high-vitamin fermented cod liver oil or 1 teaspoon regular cod liver oil³
• 1/4 teaspoon high-vitamin butter oil (optional)¹
• 1 teaspoon expeller-expressed sunflower oil¹
• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil¹
• 2 teaspoons coconut oil¹
• 2 teaspoons Frontier brand nutritional yeast flakes¹
• 2 teaspoons gelatin¹
• 1-7/8 cups filtered water
• 1/4 teaspoon acerola powder^{1, 2}
  

1. Available from Radiant Life 888-593-8333, www.radiantlifecatalog.com.
2. Earlier versions of this web page called for 1 tsp of bifidobacterium infantis and 1 tsp of acerola powder--these were typos.
3. Use only recommended brands of cod liver oil. See our recommendations here.

Instructions

• Put 2 cups filtered water into a pyrex measuring pitcher and remove 2 tablespoons (that will give you 1-7/8 cups water).
• Pour about half of the water into a pan and place on a medium flame.
• Add the gelatin and lactose to the pan and let dissolve, stirring occasionally.
• When the gelatin and lactose are dissolved, remove from heat and add the remaining water to cool the mixture.
• Stir in the coconut oil and optional high-vitamin butter oil and stir until melted.
• Meanwhile, place remaining ingredients into a blender.
• Add the water mixture and blend about three seconds.
• Place in glass bottles or a glass jar and refrigerate.
• Before giving to baby, warm bottles by placing in hot water or a bottle warmer. NEVER warm bottles in a microwave oven.