[donw]

> There is very little good scientific evidence that it is important to breastfeed.

American scientists in the 1950s pushed all manner of highly-processed food products on the public because they had "figured out" nutrition.

Except for micronutrients, probiotics, most of what we understand now about biological pathways, etc.

Barring overwhelming evidence from replicated experiments -- "peer review" is and has always been garbage -- I bias hard to "what we have evolved to do by instinct is probably the best course of action".

That'd be breastfeeding. It's counterproductive to shame mothers that use formula for any number of legitimate reasons, but "prefer breastfeeding if at all possible" is an entirely reasonable statement.

It would also help if infant formula in the US wasn't absolute garbage by law, compared to what's commonplace in Germany and Japan.

[MandieD]

Quality infant formula is also cheap in Germany compared to the US. I thought it was just having a decade of being a dual engineer couple before baby that made me wonder why on earth there are formula theft rings in the US, but no, a box of the brand-name stuff (Hipp) capable of feeding a baby for 5-7 days is about 12 EUR not on sale.

[donw]

Depends on grade here in Japan. The top-of-market stuff is 17 EUR (2200 JPY) per large can, bottom of the market is maybe half that?

[sgerenser]

How is infant formula in the U.S. different than in Germany or Japan?