Parents: You Don’t Need Infant Formula. EVER.

There’s NO NEED to panic about formula shortage. This may be an opportunity in disguise. May I tell you how RAW GOAT MILK changed my life and saved my children’s health? 
 
There’s a bit more to it than that, so please read all, before reacting. 
 
I raised my youngest three children to adulthood without feeding them infant formula even once.  
 
(Putting my first child on formula was a disaster. That and everything ELSE the pediatrician told me to do, destroyed his health until they called him “Failure to Thrive.” That’s when I started taking responsibility for his health, instead of giving it to a guy in a white coat.) 
 
Also: I never bought a single box of “baby cereal” or little jar of “baby food” after my first child.  
 
They were wildly healthy, all tall and elite athletes. None needed braces on their teeth even though both their parents did. The oldest one, I was able to recover him, and he ended up an MVP pitcher of the Utah State 4A baseball finals, as he was turning 18. 

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And I never fed any of my 4 children a single antibiotic in 25 years. 
 
May I share more about how to raise healthy babies without Enfamil or Similac’s involvement?  
 
YES, breastfeeding is best. But, no need to yell at me about “shaming” anyone because shame is not my game.  
 
And (a) I’m aware some women try, and can’t; in fact, I once got seriously underweight and my own breast milk dried up which is part of how I discovered raw goat milk;  
 
(b) I’m aware some women are passing toxins from a medical injection to baby so breast milk may be newly problematic for some; and  
 
(c) I’m actually sharing info that transcends the breastfeeding vs infant formula debate. 
 
We have a problem. There’s no infant formula on the shelves. 
 

We actually already had a problem, before the shortage. The problem was, that stuff is actually garbage. It’s the baby equivalent of feeding people Twizzlers and Cheetos as the crux of their diet.  

 
People are panicking about the shortage, but babies lived for 2,000 years before these billion-dollar public companies started telling women what "food" is for a baby.  
 

These companies care about maximizing shareholder profits, not making sure your baby thrives. American babies are not actually thriving. We’re 38th for infant mortality. That means there are 37 countries whose babies die less often than ours do, despite all our fancy tech. 54% of American children have a chronic disease. 
 

It was life-changing for me, after weaning my first child at 6 months onto formula (with disastrous results)—to find a woman in my town who was milking a few goats.  
 
What I learned from Gwen Lund (and others, and lots of books I read) gave my children their health back, and they basically never got sick again after I did what I’m going to explain here. 
 
I weaned my 2nd, 3rd, and 4th babies onto raw goat's milk, which is far more similar to human breast milk. It has a smaller fat molecule that crosses the human semi-permeable membranes without causing the body to form mucous non-stop. I’m not advising you what to do; I’m telling you what I did. I put raw goat milk, nothing added, in their baby bottle. 

 
Formula-fed babies--and babies fed dairy milk--have frequent yellow and green snot, and they often get every virus that goes around. This is totally unnecessary, and it's not the sign of a healthy child. Why? That’s the body trying to flush out toxins. The fat molecule in cow’s milk is too large for the human baby to digest well at all. 
 
Clear mucous once or twice a year is the body’s way of flushing itself. Yellow and green mucous are the sign of a very stagnant, acidic child likely to become ill in many different ways. I never once saw yellow or green mucous after I said goodbye forever to Similac, Enfamil, and for that matter dairy products. 
 

I also got bought some milk kefir grains from “KefirLady” online, which are infinitely re-useable. Making kefir is one of the most powerful things you’ll ever do for your child’s health—or your own. 
 
“Grains” are actually a live colony of culturing organisms. They’ll come to you dried, and you can just put the milk grains in any kind of milk. Let them rehydrate for a day, and for another day or two, let them “culture” the milk, to become thickened and tart-tasting.  
 
Or, put the water kefir grains into coconut water. (I am personally not a fan of culturing sugar water. I don’t believe for one minute that the cultures “eat” all the sugar. You can drink that kefir and tell that you’re drinking sugar.) You can culture coconut liquid, though, with no artificial sugar at all. It works great.  
 
The $20 you mail (yes, mail cash to her, she’s old-school and off-grid, I bought grains from her literally 20 years ago!) might be one of the most beneficial health purchases you’ve ever made.  
 
I made goat kefir every week, from the raw goat milk. (Second choice: buy pasteurized goat milk available in some dairy sections. Perhaps you can also buy online. Meyenberg was the brand I got in a pinch.) 
 
The (easy!) homemade cultured kefir kept my four children’s microbiome strong and robust, and their immune system strong. It’s SO easy.  
 
Just scoop the “grains” out of the thickened, tangy kefir, when you want to blend the kefir as a smoothie for your kids—or a bowl of “yogurt” you can put healthy nuts and seeds and fruit on top of.  
 
And start tomorrow’s batch by putting the grains in a new room-temp jar of milk, and it’ll “culture” and become thick and tangy by tomorrow! It’s fine to let it culture for 2-3 days, if you want, too. It cultures faster in hot weather, slower in the winter.  
 
The longer you leave it, the tangier and more cultured it gets! My 29-yo son used to call my mom’s kefir, she aged it for a week in the summer with no AC where she was living in Italy, “Grandma’s Moonshine.” It will actually get a tiny bit alcoholic if you leave it for a long time in a warm place! (The way I make it, it’s not alcoholic at all.) 
 
The average American child takes an antibiotic every 11 months. I gave my 4 children zero antibiotics in 25 years. I believe this habit of making my own cultured foods is the main reason why. 
 
I’m not bragging. I’m telling you that this constant drugging of the children is unnecessary. Antibiotics should be once in a lifetime, to save your life. Not the standard treatment for every cold and virus.  
 
Antibiotics wipe out the complex, rich natural flora in the gut. And they don’t even work against viruses. Doctors don’t even bother to find out if they’re treating a virus or bacterial infection, most of the time. They think you want a scrip, so they give it to you.  
  

The goat kefir, blended with a banana and some berries, was my children's breakfast their entire lives. They never got sick again, when I started this.  
 
This smoothie is high in fats for a developing brain, and it is not mucous-forming and acid-forming like dairy. If you buy a goat or find someone who will buy and milk goats (or already does)—I had to ask around, and be resourceful!-- 
 
--you’ve “gone local.” Which we need, as global commerce is crashing down around our ears.  
 
You’ve helped your family become more independent. You’ve helped your community be stronger. You’ll probably help others connect to that little goat owner. You’ll probably share your kefir grains when they multiply to be more than you need.  
 
And you’ve said goodbye to your baby drinking whey solids and corn syrup solids – those are the crappy ingredients of Similac’s product. 
 
All in one move, you did all that! 

 
We wonder why American children have so many food intolerances, gut issues, and most kids are overweight or underweight. Well, here are some ideas: (a) processed food from birth (including infant formula), (b) glyphosate sprayed on their food, especially wheat and oats; and (c) 72 injections in the pediatrician’s office. Instead of preventing disease, we have the sickest kids to ever walk the Earth. 
 

The cultured raw goat milk (plus my little ones’ whole-foods diet with plenty of fiber) built and maintained their healthy microbiome. That is a healthy immune system, because 85% of your immune system resides in your gut. When everyone around us got sick, they didn't.  
 

The dairy industry is very powerful and even back then, 25 years ago, you couldn't legally buy raw goat milk as "food."  
 

I just bought it, raw and unpasteurized. If someone had asked me, I would have said I make soap with it. That’s the deal I made with these little local goat operations I worked with. 
 

There were zero reported issues with raw goat milk in recorded history in the Western U.S. We also must get over the idea that we have to nuke everything (“pasteurize”) to death for it to be "safe."  
 
Pasteurized milk is not good for you--it's just made to survive the supply chain.  

 
Raw milk has all the enzymes you need, and you aren't killing a lot of the nutrients with heat treatment. If I couldn't get goat milk, I'd get RAW cow's milk from free-range cows eating food not sprayed with glyphosate. Again, you’re going to have to be more resourceful than running to Publix and opening the door of their dairy fridge. 

 
I hope you show this to every baby mama and papa, because I'm highly shadow banned. My heart breaks for these parents in a panic because the infant formula shelves are empty. 
 
Until the eyeteeth come in at about 18 months, babies do not produce digestive enzymes, so I breastfed mine as much as possible until then, and gave them only RAW food (because they come with their own enzymes, pre-digested!) – such as raw goat milk or kefir, mashed avocado, mashed banana, or any vegetable blended with a bit of water in a Vitamix or Blendtec. 
 
No sugar. No processed food. No meat (concentrated pesticides, and harder to digest for a baby before eyeteeth come in). Throw a carrot, cut in chunks, in your turbo blender with a bit of water. All 4 of my babies gobbled this up! They had not ruined their taste buds with processed sugar. 
 

There are recipes for "good" baby formula when breastfeeding isn't possible. I am not a dietician (nor do I think most dieticians and nutritionists learn much besides industry propaganda in school—some of them self-educate outside that system) but for MY kids, I breastfed as long as I could – my youngest son was almost 2 when I stopped – and now you know what ELSE I fed them.  
 
I did not feed them junk food, either. If you’re in control of their diet from infancy forward, it’s YOUR choice whether they become little sugar addicts begging for Skittles and Starbursts every hour of the day like I watched my nieces and nephews do. My kids didn’t nag me for sugar, because there wasn’t any, in my house. So not only did I not deal with yellow and green mucous, but I also did not deal with addict behaviors. 
 
I know what sugar addiction looks, sounds, and feels like—because I once WAS one. 
 
Not only did Gwen Lund sell me 2 gallons of fresh, raw goat milk every week for many, many years--but she became a friend and taught me a lot of lost-art recipes and practices that kept my family incredibly healthy.  
 
This is what I share on GreenSmoothieGirl in my books and everything I do, because I feel that the entire concept of health has been hijacked and prostituted and lost—by industries, agendas, profit motives, influencers, fad diets, and the general dumbing-down of America. 
 
I honestly never see anyone online talking about the things that saved my family’s health over a quarter century ago. Even the holistic docs have succumbed to the “pill for every ill” mental conditioning, and all most of them do is prescribe supplements. 
 
Here's the exact place I bought my milk kefir grains. (Water kefir grains ferment my coconut water, which is the base of my famous Hot Pink Breakfast Smoothie, too!)  
 
When your grains grow and you have some to give away, find someone whose gut health is suffering and is willing to try a new habit! Give them some of yours and teach them how to use the grains! 
 
I’ve used mine for YEARS! I moved 2,700 miles away from Utah to Florida, and still have my kefir grains! I have people come over to my house to see/touch/taste it. I even had my divorce lawyer come over and learn how to make kefir. And my cleaning lady. And my neighbors.  
 
(P.S. It’s SO EASY. You don’t even need to be in my kitchen to start doing it. Nobody showed me. I had less info when I started than you have in this post.) 
 
They’re a LIVING colony of cultures and we have ZERO gut issues at my house, so what’s good for babies is also good for adults, although I never had a taste for goat milk, so I ferment coconut water with “water kefir grains” instead. 
 
Subscribe here on Substack, and next you’ll get an email from me about how to stock up on a handful of supplements and herbs, to avoid antibiotics using natural remedies at the first sign on illness or infection. That’s another of the “lost arts” I don’t see anyone talking about. So I will! 
 
You may not like what I have to say if you don’t support medical freedom. Because the right to choose what is injected into my and my children’s body is the hill I will die on.  
 
I’ve been teaching principles like this from Day One, over 20 years now—but for the last 2+ years, I’m also speaking out very publicly about the damage done to me and my first child by some medical products. So don’t be surprised if you hear about that, too, as we go along. 
 
My next post will be about how taking probiotic pills may help—5-10% of the brands do, and they might be a complete waste of money. In fact, I’m going to show you how I tested 20 brands that friends of GreenSmoothieGirl sent me. I love taking a good probiotic, but cultured food is a very important nutrition habit, where YOU control the supply chain much better. 
 
Robyn Openshaw 

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