Infant Formula
In 1865 Justus von Liebig invented Soluble Food for Babies. It was the world鈥檚 first commercial substitute for breastmilk and it has helped to shape the modern workplace.
Not every baby has a mother who can breastfeed. Indeed, not every baby has a mother. In the early 1800s, only two in three babies who weren鈥檛 breastfed lived to see their first birthday. Many were given 鈥減ap鈥, a bread-and-water mush, from hard-to-clean receptacles that teemed with bacteria. But in 1865 Justus von Liebig invented Soluble Food for Babies 鈥 a powder comprising cow鈥檚 milk, wheat flour, malt flour and potassium bicarbonate. It was the first commercial substitute for breastmilk and, as Tim Harford explains, it has helped shape the modern workplace.
Editors: Richard Knight and Richard Vadon
Producer: Ben Crighton
(Image: Baby lying down drinking from bottle, Credit: Lopolo/Shutterstock)
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Sources and related links
Justus von Liebig - The Chemical Gatekeeper (Cambridge Science Biographies), William H Brock, 2002听
Harvey A. Levenstein听 - Revolution at the Table: The Transformation of the American Diet, University of California Press, 2003听
Marianne R. Neifert听 - Dr. Mom's Guide to Breastfeeding, Plume, 1998听
Geoff Talbot - Specialty Oils and Fats in Food and Nutrition: Properties, Processing and Applications, Woodhead Publishing, 2015, p287听听
Bertrand, Marianne, Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz - "Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors." American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2(3): 228-55, 2010听
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