By Reed Mangels, PhD, RD
The U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) recently published a redesigned webpage about infant formula. The page is for consumers and the infant formula industry. In an announcement of the redesign, the FDA stated that “[this] is a first step toward improving accessibility of information to help parents, caregivers, and industry get the information they need about infant formula.”
The redesigned webpage includes information about different types of infant formulas including soy-based infant formula which would be used by vegans. It discusses FDA’s concerns about use of homemade infant formulas and advises parents and caregivers not to make or feed homemade infant formulas to infants. It also discourages use of “toddler formulas.” The webpage provides links to information about preparing and storing infant formula and to FAQs about infant formula.
We recommend that infants be exclusively breastfed for the first 6 months. If that isn’t possible, infants should be given commercial infant formula or a combination of commercial infant formula and breast milk. Vegan families typically use commercial soy-based infant formulas if exclusive breast feeding isn’t possible.
For more information about infant formula and about feeding vegan babies see:
Feeding Vegan Kids