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Re: a variation of ag. dependence



In article <19961209000600.TAA24884@ladder01.news.aol.com> brateaver@aol.com writes:
>That's right about Nestle. True. And in those countries there surely is no
>way to refrigerate anything at all.  We used to boil the leftover milk
>every evening. Sometimes its protein surface gathering was starting to
>turn brown--I suppose that was caramelizing the sugar in it? like
>gjetost??  
>
>Even then, we had a pantry "cupboard", where we could store the boiled
>milk overnight. It was a screened top with 4 legs that stood in a can of
>kerosene, to keep out bugs, etc.  The natives had nothing like that, Even
>if they knew to boil milk, they could only set the kettle on the dirt
>floor.

Except for being rich enough to afford a shelf, the situation of the
"natives" described millions of Americans who used bottle feeding.
The poverty of many Americans in the years before WWII was as desperate
as anyone's.  Tar-paper shacks and oil-tin utensils aren't a Third World
monopoly.  Refrigeration was not usual in this country in areas
without electricity, and electricity was a strictly urban affair
until the 1930's.  Even ice boxes were far from universal.  And
safe water is always a tremendous headache in agricultural areas,
where having the barnyard close to the house, using manure for
fertilizer, and having livestock wandering all over the place makes
contamination of surface water a certainty, and of shallow wells a
safe bet.

The technique for using infant formula is simple enough, requires no
refrigeration, and doesn't even demand a great deal of cleanliness.
There are a couple of variations.  In one, you boil all the parts of
the baby bottle, plus any additional utensils you'll use in mixing up
the formula.  You wash your hands with boiled water, fish out a
boiled bottle filled with boiled water, add powdered formula, screw
on the boiled nipple and nipple ring, shake it up, and either feed it
to baby instantly (if baby's hungry, and the water's cool enough), or
put the boiled cover over the top to keep dust off the nipple.
Such a bottle should be used within a reasonably short time (six
hours, I think).  The components are all supposed to be germ-free,
but it's not as positive a system as the next one.

The other system involves mixing bottles of formula and THEN boiling
the assembled and filled bottles in a water bath.  Since the whole
nine yards is boiled AFTER you're done handling it, it's safe to keep
it around longer.  I forget how long, but I think it's at least 24
hours at room temperature.  This method revolves around doing largeish
batches of bottles to tide you over for a whole day.

I am of the opinion that the "every woman can nurse her baby" school
of thought overstates the case.  Various paps and formulas were
used widely and written about constantly in the eighteenth century,
even though they didn't work very well, and everyone knew it.  To
me, this implies a high level of desperation.

(As an aside, I'm pretty sure that the acceptance of formulas as the
usual method of infant feeding in the U.S. was driven by the fear
of tuberculosis, a disease that everyone was exposed to, and could
come down with at any time.  The tuberculosis bacillus was known
to be present in cow's milk, and probably in mother's milk as well.
Bottle feeding using sterilized milk provided a means of avoiding
this exposure.

This isn't the most unusual method of avoiding tuberculosis.  The
"sleeping porch" movement held that sleeping in a highly ventilated,
unheated room would reduce your chances of contracting T.B., so many
people slept year-round in screened porches, even in such arctic
climates as New England.  I suspect that it helped, but not as
much as antibiotics.  Oddly, I learned about this open-air
movement while reading a book about chicken houses!  Dr. Woods
was an evangelist of open-air living for both people and livestock.
He was certainly right about the chickens.)

	-- Robert
-- 
Robert Plamondon, President/Managing Editor, High-Tech Technical Writing, Inc. 
36475 Norton Creek Road * Blodgett * Oregon * 97326
robert@plamondon.com * (541) 453-5841 * Fax: (541) 453-4139



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