Modermælken og dens erstatninger 1867-1980. En fødevarebiografi

Danish Breast Milk Substitutes 1867-1980. A Food BiographyThis article investigates the ways in which knowledge about nutrition has been embedded in different types of homemade and commercial breast milk substitutes in Denmark from 1867, when the first commercial product was introduced, to 1980, at which point WHO issued a codex banning the advertisement of infant formula. Over this time span, we identify three main breast milk substitutes that were marketed and/or recommended to Danish caretakers: børnemel (children’s flour), homemade milk mixtures, and infant formula.The aim of the article is twofold: first, to explore the historicity of foodstuffs, their contents and the kinds of knowledge that went into their composition; second, to find a baseline which, across time, allows for a macro nutrition comparison of infant formulas. We argue that the history of breast milk substitutes cannot be written independently from the history of breast milk itself, as knowledge about both was stabilised in a reciprocal process that began with modern nutritional science. The focus on macronutrients and energy percentages allows us to show that non-breastfed Danish infants were likely offered alternatives with a relative high content of protein, compared to present day nutritional recommendations – a diet that, according to modern hypotheses, includes an obesity risk in later life

Modermælken og dens erstatninger 1867-1980, en fødevarebiografi

This article investigates the ways in which knowledge about nutrition has been embedded in different types of homemade and commercial breast milk substitutes in Denmark from 1867, when the first commercial product was introduced, to 1980, at which point WHO issued a codex banning the advertisement of infant formula. Over this time span, we identify three main breast milk substitutes that were marketed and/or recommended to Danish caretakers: børnemel (children’s flour), homemade milk mixtures, and infant formula.The aim of the article is twofold: first, to explore the historicity of foodstuffs, their contents and the kinds of knowledge that went into their composition; second, to find a baseline which, across time, allows for a macro nutrition comparison of infant formulas. We argue that the history of breast milk substitutes cannot be written independently from the history of breast milk itself, as knowledge about both was stabilised in a reciprocal process that began with modern nutritional science. The focus on macronutrients and energy percentages allows us to show that non-breastfed Danish infants were likely offered alternatives with a relative high content of protein, compared to present day nutritional recommendations – a diet that, according to modern hypotheses, includes an obesity risk in later life

Sensing of triacylglycerol in the gut:different mechanisms for fatty acids and 2-monoacylglycerol

Sensing of dietary triacylglycerol in the proximal small intestine results in physiological, hormonal and behavioural responses. However, the exact physiological pathways linking intestinal fat sensing to food intake and the activation of brain circuits remain to be identified. In this study we examined the role of triacylglycerol digestion for intestinal fat sensing, and compared the effects of the triacylglycerol digestion products, fatty acids and 2-monoacylglycerol, on behavioural, hormonal and dopaminergic responses in behaving mice. Using an operant task in which mice are trained to self-administer lipid emulsions directly into the stomach, we show that inhibiting triacylglycerol digestion disrupts normal behaviour of self-administration in mice, indicating that fat sensing is conditional to digestion. When administered separately, both digestion products, 2-monoacylglycerol and fatty acids, were sensed by the mice, and self-administration patterns of fatty acids were affected by the fatty acid chain length. Peripheral plasma concentrations of the gut hormones GLP-1, GIP, PYY, CCK and insulin did not offer an explanation of the differing behavioural effects produced by 2-monoacylglycerol and fatty acids. However, combined with behavioural responses, striatal dopamine effluxes induced by gut infusions of oleic acid were significantly greater than those produced by equivalent infusions of 2-oleoylglycerol. Our data demonstrate recruitment of different signalling pathways by fatty acids and 2-monoacylglycerol, and suggest that the structural properties of fat rather than total caloric value determine intestinal sensing and the assignment of reward value to lipids