Pablum
Encyclopedia
Pablum is a processed cereal
for infant
s originally marketed by the Mead Johnson
Company in 1931. The trademark
ed name is a contracted form of the Latin
word pabulum, meaning "foodstuff", which had long been used in botany and medicine to refer to nutrition
, or substances of which the nutritive elements are passively absorbed. The aspect of passivity had already given a negative connotation to metaphorical uses of the word pabulum, and the marketing of Pablum influenced the usage to refer to something bland, mushy, unappetizing, or infantile, and thus (paradoxically) with little worthwhile content.
pediatricians Frederick Tisdall
, Theodore Drake
, and Alan Brown, in collaboration with nutrition
laboratory technician
Ruth Herbert (all of the Hospital for Sick Children
in Toronto
), along with Mead Johnson chemist
Harry H. Engel. The cereal marked a breakthrough in nutritional science: it helped prevent rickets
, a crippling childhood disease
, by ensuring that children had sufficient vitamin D
in their diet.
Although neither Pablum nor its biscuit predecessor was the first food designed and sold specifically for babies, it was the first baby food
to come precooked and thoroughly dried. The ease of preparation made Pablum successful in an era when infant malnutrition
was still a major problem in industrialized countries.
Pablum Mixed Cereal was made from a mixture of ground and precooked wheat
(farina
), oatmeal
, yellow corn meal, bone meal
, dried brewer's yeast
, and powdered alfalfa
leaf, fortified with reduced iron — providing an assortment of minerals
and vitamin
s A
, B1
, B2
, D
, and E
. Pablum is palatable and easily digested without causing side effects
like diarrhea
or constipation
. It is also unlikely to cause allergic reactions, as it does not contain eggs
, lactose
or nuts
of any kind (although it may contain wheat and corn, either of which can be allergenic for some individuals).
For a period of 25 years, the Hospital for Sick Children and the Toronto Pediatric Foundation received a royalty
on every package of Pablum sold. In 2005, the Pablum brand was acquired by the H. J. Heinz Company
.
Cereal
Cereals are grasses cultivated for the edible components of their grain , composed of the endosperm, germ, and bran...
for infant
Infant
A newborn or baby is the very young offspring of a human or other mammal. A newborn is an infant who is within hours, days, or up to a few weeks from birth. In medical contexts, newborn or neonate refers to an infant in the first 28 days after birth...
s originally marketed by the Mead Johnson
Mead Johnson
Mead Johnson & Company is a company which was majority owned by Bristol-Myers Squibb after an acquisition in 1967, but was spun off in 2009 as an independent firm. Mead Johnson is a major manufacturer of infant formula both domestically and globally with its flagship product Enfamil...
Company in 1931. The trademark
Trademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
ed name is a contracted form of the Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
word pabulum, meaning "foodstuff", which had long been used in botany and medicine to refer to nutrition
Nutrition
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....
, or substances of which the nutritive elements are passively absorbed. The aspect of passivity had already given a negative connotation to metaphorical uses of the word pabulum, and the marketing of Pablum influenced the usage to refer to something bland, mushy, unappetizing, or infantile, and thus (paradoxically) with little worthwhile content.
History
Pablum was developed by CanadianCanada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
pediatricians Frederick Tisdall
Frederick Tisdall
Dr.Frederick Tisdall was one of three Canadian pediatricians who developed the infant cereal Pablum. He first started working at The Hospital for Sick Children in 1921. In 1929,at the age of 36, he was made Director of the Nutritional Research Laboratories...
, Theodore Drake
Theodore Drake
Theodore G.H. Drake, MD was a Canadian pediatrician and one of three doctors that developed Pablum.-Early life:Drake was born on September 16, 1891 in Webbwood, Ontario. He obtained his university degree from the University of Toronto in 1914. He spent two years in residence at the Toronto General...
, and Alan Brown, in collaboration with nutrition
Nutrition
Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with a healthy diet....
laboratory technician
Technician
A technician is a worker in a field of technology who is proficient in the relevant skills and techniques, with a relatively practical understanding of the theoretical principles. Experienced technicians in a specific tool domain typically have intermediate understanding of theory and expert...
Ruth Herbert (all of the Hospital for Sick Children
Hospital for Sick Children
The Hospital for Sick Children – is a major paediatric centre for the Greater Toronto Area, serving patients up to age 18. Located on University Avenue in Downtown Toronto, SickKids is part of the city’s Discovery District, a critical mass of scientists and entrepreneurs who are focused on...
in Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
), along with Mead Johnson chemist
Chemist
A chemist is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties such as density and acidity. Chemists carefully describe the properties they study in terms of quantities, with detail on the level of molecules and their component atoms...
Harry H. Engel. The cereal marked a breakthrough in nutritional science: it helped prevent rickets
Rickets
Rickets is a softening of bones in children due to deficiency or impaired metabolism of vitamin D, magnesium , phosphorus or calcium, potentially leading to fractures and deformity. Rickets is among the most frequent childhood diseases in many developing countries...
, a crippling childhood disease
Disease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
, by ensuring that children had sufficient vitamin D
Vitamin D
Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble secosteroids. In humans, vitamin D is unique both because it functions as a prohormone and because the body can synthesize it when sun exposure is adequate ....
in their diet.
Although neither Pablum nor its biscuit predecessor was the first food designed and sold specifically for babies, it was the first baby food
Baby food
Baby food is any food, other than breastmilk or infant formula, that is made specifically for infants, roughly between the ages of four to six months to 2 years. The food comes in multiple varieties and tastes, can be produced by many manufacturers, or may be table food that the rest of the family...
to come precooked and thoroughly dried. The ease of preparation made Pablum successful in an era when infant malnutrition
Malnutrition
Malnutrition is the condition that results from taking an unbalanced diet in which certain nutrients are lacking, in excess , or in the wrong proportions....
was still a major problem in industrialized countries.
Pablum Mixed Cereal was made from a mixture of ground and precooked wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...
(farina
Farina (food)
Farina is a cereal food, frequently described as mild-tasting, usually served warm, made from cereal grains. In contemporary American English use, the word usually refers to Cream of Wheat made from soft wheat. Wheat farina is a carbohydrate-rich food, often cooked in boiling water and served warm...
), oatmeal
Oatmeal
Oatmeal is ground oat groats , or a porridge made from oats . Oatmeal can also be ground oat, steel-cut oats, crushed oats, or rolled oats....
, yellow corn meal, bone meal
Bone meal
Bone meal is a mixture of crushed and coarsely ground bones that is used as an organic fertilizer for plants and formerly in animal feed. As a slow-release fertilizer, bone meal is primarily used as a source of phosphorus....
, dried brewer's yeast
Yeast
Yeasts are eukaryotic micro-organisms classified in the kingdom Fungi, with 1,500 species currently described estimated to be only 1% of all fungal species. Most reproduce asexually by mitosis, and many do so by an asymmetric division process called budding...
, and powdered alfalfa
Alfalfa
Alfalfa is a flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae cultivated as an important forage crop in the US, Canada, Argentina, France, Australia, the Middle East, South Africa, and many other countries. It is known as lucerne in the UK, France, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, and known as...
leaf, fortified with reduced iron — providing an assortment of minerals
Dietary mineral
Dietary minerals are the chemical elements required by living organisms, other than the four elements carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen present in common organic molecules. Examples of mineral elements include calcium, magnesium, potassium, sodium, zinc, and iodine...
and vitamin
Vitamin
A vitamin is an organic compound required as a nutrient in tiny amounts by an organism. In other words, an organic chemical compound is called a vitamin when it cannot be synthesized in sufficient quantities by an organism, and must be obtained from the diet. Thus, the term is conditional both on...
s A
Vitamin A
Vitamin A is a vitamin that is needed by the retina of the eye in the form of a specific metabolite, the light-absorbing molecule retinal, that is necessary for both low-light and color vision...
, B1
Thiamine
Thiamine or thiamin or vitamin B1 , named as the "thio-vitamine" is a water-soluble vitamin of the B complex. First named aneurin for the detrimental neurological effects if not present in the diet, it was eventually assigned the generic descriptor name vitamin B1. Its phosphate derivatives are...
, B2
Riboflavin
Riboflavin, also known as vitamin B2 or additive E101, is an easily absorbed micronutrient with a key role in maintaining health in humans and animals. It is the central component of the cofactors FAD and FMN, and is therefore required by all flavoproteins. As such, vitamin B2 is required for a...
, D
Vitamin D
Vitamin D is a group of fat-soluble secosteroids. In humans, vitamin D is unique both because it functions as a prohormone and because the body can synthesize it when sun exposure is adequate ....
, and E
Vitamin E
Vitamin E is used to refer to a group of fat-soluble compounds that include both tocopherols and tocotrienols. There are many different forms of vitamin E, of which γ-tocopherol is the most common in the North American diet. γ-Tocopherol can be found in corn oil, soybean oil, margarine and dressings...
. Pablum is palatable and easily digested without causing side effects
Adverse effect (medicine)
In medicine, an adverse effect is a harmful and undesired effect resulting from a medication or other intervention such as surgery.An adverse effect may be termed a "side effect", when judged to be secondary to a main or therapeutic effect. If it results from an unsuitable or incorrect dosage or...
like diarrhea
Diarrhea
Diarrhea , also spelled diarrhoea, is the condition of having three or more loose or liquid bowel movements per day. It is a common cause of death in developing countries and the second most common cause of infant deaths worldwide. The loss of fluids through diarrhea can cause dehydration and...
or constipation
Constipation
Constipation refers to bowel movements that are infrequent or hard to pass. Constipation is a common cause of painful defecation...
. It is also unlikely to cause allergic reactions, as it does not contain eggs
Egg (food)
Eggs are laid by females of many different species, including birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, and have probably been eaten by mankind for millennia. Bird and reptile eggs consist of a protective eggshell, albumen , and vitellus , contained within various thin membranes...
, lactose
Lactose
Lactose is a disaccharide sugar that is found most notably in milk and is formed from galactose and glucose. Lactose makes up around 2~8% of milk , although the amount varies among species and individuals. It is extracted from sweet or sour whey. The name comes from or , the Latin word for milk,...
or nuts
Nut (fruit)
A nut is a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts in English, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts...
of any kind (although it may contain wheat and corn, either of which can be allergenic for some individuals).
For a period of 25 years, the Hospital for Sick Children and the Toronto Pediatric Foundation received a royalty
Royalties
Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...
on every package of Pablum sold. In 2005, the Pablum brand was acquired by the H. J. Heinz Company
H. J. Heinz Company
The H. J. Heinz Company , commonly known as Heinz and famous for its "57 Varieties" slogan and its ketchup, is an American food company with world headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Perhaps best known for its ketchup, the H.J...
.