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Date: | Mon, 4 Dec 1995 13:28:05 CET |
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Having appreciated recent posts, I am inclined to share two
paragraphs from a short essay which I call "Beyond culture
and geography: our common nutritional experience".
Breast milk is the contemporary universal nutritional link
par excellence for the entire human species--north, east,
south and west, all 5700 million of us. Historically, breast
milk is also a vital nutritional link in the human family's
unending chain; it helps to define our place in the parade
of generations, as much in terms of those who came before us
as those who will come after. And, to complete the metaphor,
we can say that breast milk permits our species to "hold
hands", simultaneously, with yesterday, today and tomorrow.
No substitute, not even the most sophisticated and
nutritionally balanced infant formula, can possibly compete
with the multiple wonders of breast milk. But then, how
could it? After 60 million or so years of mammalian
evolution--or what many attribute to the perfect hand of the
Creator--a synthetic product that is usually based on the
milk of *another* species could hardly be expected to
measure up.
Jim Akre, Nutrition unit, WHO Geneva
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