Parents struggle to find baby formula amid widespread shortages and rationing

[grulla]

Megan Cerullo
April 8, 2022

One of the most important products for new parents is in short supply. Baby formula, which three-quarters of babies in the U.S. receive within their first six months, is increasingly out of stock at retailers across the country.

The supply of formula is so constrained that retailers like Walgreens are even limiting how much consumers can purchase at one time. A spokesperson for the drugstore chain told CBS MoneyWatch it is limiting customers to three infant and toddler formula products per transaction, citing "increased demand and various supplier issues."

Continue reading at:
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/baby-fo...-supply-chain/

[grulla]

Perhaps this situation will encourage more parents to get out their storaged food processors and blenders, and make their own baby food from organic veggies and other food sources, instead of relying on all that impossible to get factory food and formula.

[Islander]

I only wish for what mothers have done from time immemorial: nursed their infants. Mother's milk is the most perfect food for babies, and it's free! It's always at the right temperature and it is ready at any moment. Infants can be fed at frequent intervals all day long, the way they were intended to do, just like all other mammals. Once you get used to nursing, you can hold that little charmer with one arm while you go about your daily activities with the other hand. It's surprising how flexible you get when you have an infant to feed!

[Julieanne]

grulla, baby formula is not the same as baby food, it's a milk product to replace breast feeding. Baby food is mushed up vegetables or fruit and maybe meat. I never bought baby food, it was so easy to make my own, though that was before we all owned food processors. I used a Mouli mill, which is a lot more work! So many new mothers go back to work soon after having a baby, and don't have the time to do this. I don't know the situation in the US, but here in Oz there is enough paid parental leave (I think it's six months) to establish breast feeding. My DIL went back to work at six months and was able to continue feeding for a year.

We had a shortage of formula here a while back, because not only do we export to China, but people were flying in and buying up so much milk it left little for locals. The Chinese formula was contaminated with melamine and no-one wanted to buy it.

[grulla]

grulla, baby formula is not the same as baby food, it's a milk product to replace breast feeding.....

In some other related news articles, the media did include baby food, such as Gerber's, along with the baby formula shortages.

[Islander]

I've been invited to serve on a panel of customers for Hannaford's, a large supermarket chain in the Northeast. They are constantly presenting us with changes, upgrades, improvements, new features, and asking our opinions. And everywhere I look, it's convenience convenience convenience. We all want to live in nice clean houses and eat appetizing fresh foods, but no one wants to do the work. We are constantly looking for short cuts, it seems. In fact the feature they've put together of complete meals for two, ready to take home and warm up, is called "TIMESAVERS." We can't be bothered to cook food and it seems in many cases, we've forgotten how. Seriously, we can't even boil eggs or cut the florettes off broccoli and cauliflower. And what do we do with all our saved time? Do we visit with friends? Play with our children? Spend more time with our significant other? Do we engage in hobbies or read lots of books? Raise flowers or grow a garden? Put a new coat of paint on the master bedroom?

I'd really like to know, especially when it comes to caring for our children. We are spending money on formula full of artificial ingredients for our newborns rather than offering them nature's most perfect food. As soon as their teeth come in, we offer them the equivalent of commercially canned meats and vegetables, again filled with artificial ingredients, additives and preservatives. Do we care? Does it bother us that we have to spend money on imperfect strained and chopped foods, rather than put our own meals in a blender and feed our children wholesome meals?

I know, I know, these are rhetorical questions. But the corporate world has accustomed us to the luxury of convenience and lots of empty hours we can spend in front of our television, being force-fed entertainment at the pleasure of these same corporations. And I just had to rant about it.

[Islander]

And look what I just found from EWG!

Feeding young ones but don't have time to make your own baby food? Consider looking beyond jarred food. In their frozen aisles, some stores are stocking baby food made from fresh fruits and vegetables. Freezing produce helps slow nutritional losses, and helps prevent the growth of most microbes, making preservatives less necessary. And since frozen fruits and vegetables are often harvested at the peak of the season, there's less need add flavors, or other additives or fillers to improve taste.
Tip: Many jarred foods from well-known brands like Gerber contain "flavor," or thickening ingredients like rice flour,²⁰ which can be contaminated with cancer-risk-increasing arsenic.²¹ Some experts think added flavors "may be overwhelming our palates, diluting our ability to taste real food."²² Thousands of these secretive flavor chemical mixtures are added to foods without Food and Drug Administration oversight or review.²³ EWG's Food Scores app can help you find baby foods without added flavors or thickeners.
Try brands like Yummy Spoonfuls, which is the first brand of flash-frozen, organic baby food in a pouch to be sold across the U.S.

https://www.ewg.org/foodscores/conte...a&ceid=1982692

[Maurya]

Brava Islander!

[grulla]

Mercola is running a DIY baby formula article this morning, derived from the Weston A. Price Foundation (WAPF), and with Dr.M's option of eliminating the needs for iron and linoleic acid (LA).
https://media.mercola.com/ImageServe...ortage-pdf.pdf

[Islander]

This is silly, and it displays our ignorance as a country that used to be primarily farmers. No one seems to know anymore that goat milk is the closest thing to human milk and that most infants can be weaned onto goat's milk with no problem.

[Julieanne]

I was going to say the same thing, and left a comment on Mercola - why didn't he mention goat milk? Mind you, it may not be all that easy to find. My local supermarket used to stock raw goat milk, but haven't seen it for some time. It would be hard to obtain for city folks.

[grulla]

I'm also surprised that WAPF didn't mention goat milk.