The thread about pressure from health care providers to start solids by six months 
inspires me to second Susan Burger's recommendation that you read Michael Pollan's 
"Unhappy Meals" article from last Sunday's New York Times Magazine.  It is still #4 on 
their most emailed list, so there is an easy link to it on nytimes.com.

As I believe Susan mentioned, Pollan observes that our current understanding of nutrition 
is based on fairly bad science.  Scientists are good at isolating various micronutrients and 
studying them in that not-so-splendid isolation, but that gives us virtually no information 
about how these micronutrients interact with each other in whole foods (Pollan provides a 
fascinatingly long list of micronutrients found in one sprig of thyme and muses about the 
possible ways those components interact in our bodies).  

Karleen, I believe, mentioned that the doctor who has fortified baby milk with zinc is a 
zinc expert, not an infant feeding expert.  He knows a lot about zinc, understands that it 
is important for human health, but, like so many other micronutrient experts, doesn't 
fully appreciate the impact of pulling this zinc from its natural source, sticking it in 
formula, and then actively promoting use of that formula.  (Pollan gives the compelling 
example of antioxidants that, when placed in certain foods, become, as it were, pro-
oxidants).

When health care providers worry over exclusively-breastfed 6-month-olds, they are 
usually fixating on iron.  According to the math of scientific reductionism, babies' iron 
stores are depleted by six months, breastmilk has very little iron, and, as such, these 
babies are in dire need of another source of iron.  

Most of us on this list, however, have seen far too many counterexamples to buy into this 
math.  After all, every time this topic comes up on Lactnet, several listmembers share 
anecdotes about babies who have thrived mostly or completely on breastfeeding for most 
of the first year of life and, in many cases, beyond.   

In all likelihood, as has been suggested on Lactnet before, the limited iron in breastmilk 
interacts with other components of breastmilk to fully fund exclusively-breastfed babies' 
growing bodies with iron well into the second year of life. 

Until we get past this era of scientific reductionism, especially as it relates to human 
health and nutrition, however, we are unlikely to have a satisfactory scientific explanation 
of healthy breastfed toddlers who eat little or no solid food. 

Kerry Ose, PhD

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