What’s in Your Milk Formula? Baby Formula Ingredients You Should Know
These days, baby formula manufacturers are doing their best to provide babies with the products that will be most effective, filling and nutritious for them. A lot of researches are being done for this purpose, so some of the current formulas have much higher quality than even a century ago. Baby formulas are now as close as possible to breast milk, as they contain all the necessary vitamins, minerals and other nutrients for the baby.
Moreover, some of them are adapted to various children’s characteristics, such as a tendency to reflux, lactose intolerance, allergies to certain ingredients and so on and so forth. Therefore, it becomes a great alternative for parents if they decide for some reason not to breastfeed. But understanding the composition and content of baby formulas is extremely important, so let’s look at them in more detail.
What nutrients can be found in baby formula?
A baby formula is usually a balanced amount of all the important components of a child’s life. These include protein, fats, carbohydrates, minerals, vitamins and additional ingredients. First of all, let’s consider the types of protein that can be used for baby formulas. Most often it is cow’s or goat’s milk protein, which is very similar to that found in breast milk. Many children around the world enjoy this type of formula. But there are those who have a negative reaction to cow’s milk, so parents can find the alternative such as soy-based formulas. If this option is an exception, then you can try formulas with hydrolysate protein, which become an option for children who are allergic to protein in general.
What about nutrients? In baby formulas you can find an enriching set of various vitamins that are necessary for the good development of the baby. These are various vitamins of groups A, B, C, D, E and K. Biotin, choline, riboflavin, niacin, thiamine, pantothenic, folic acid are also found among the most used vitamins in baby formulas. Modern high quality formulas are also rich in minerals such as calcium, chloride, iodine, selenium, sodium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium and zinc. In addition, baby formulas are rich in carbohydrates, the main of which is lactose. In some formulas it can be replaced by glucose or sucrose. If we talk about fats in baby formulas, it is a collection of various vegetable oils. Their use is very similar to the fats found in breast milk.
Unhealthy ingredients that can be found in baby formulas
This is the list of products that should be avoided in most cases. If such ingredients are in large quantities in the formula, it can adversely affect the health of your baby. Among the dangerous elements are sucrose, soy, dioxin, preservatives and other synthetic ingredients. Among the ingredients that researchers and manufacturers want to exclude from baby formulas are heavy metals. The most common heavy metals in baby food are lead and cadmium. Tests have shown that most organic formulas avoid the use of such heavy metals in their product. Therefore, pay special attention to the composition of baby formula to choose the best baby formula.