Benefits of Freeze Drying Your Breastmilk
Huh? Freeze drying your breastmilk?!
Prepare to be mind-blown!
Breastmilk is the original superfood. Breastmilk fed babies have higher IQs, lower rates of food sensitivities, allergies, ear infections, obesity, and overall illnesses. But for mamas who pump and store their breastmilk in the freezer, it can be a huge inconvenience having to work around storage times, refrigeration and babies who just won’t take a bottle anymore. This is where freeze drying your breastmilk can be a real lifesaver.
Freeze drying removes the water from your frozen breastmilk, making it conveniently shelf stable and travel friendly. Think of it like the most natural powdered infant formula, but it’s your own breastmilk.
Is Freeze Drying Breastmilk a New Process?
The history of research on freeze-drying breastmilk dates back to the 1950s and is shown to be a better way of storing and preserving nutrients, immune factors, enzymes, antibodies and antioxidants.
NASA’s ‘space food’ is probably the most iconic example of freeze drying. Astronauts would take freeze dried food on space missions because of its shelf stability, light weight and impeccable retention of nutrients.
Freeze drying is not a 20th Century process by any stretch of the imagination. The ancient Incas would freeze-dry their potatoes at the top of mountains where the cold mountain temperatures and low-pressure systems made for a useful environment for long term food storage.
Milk banks around the world have used the freeze-drying technology to improve the longevity and use of their donor milks. Fortifying bottle of breastmilk with freeze dried breastmilk has been shown to improve the health and vitality of very low birth weight and ‘preemie’ babies, where powdered infant formula was previously the only other option available.
What if your baby doesn’t take a bottle anymore?
Freeze-dried breastmilk is not limited to just making a bottle. Your little one can keep getting the numerous health benefits of breastmilk, well past the breastfeeding stage. Because your breastmilk is now in convenient powder form, you can add it to almost any of your baby’s foods and beverages.
Benefits of Adding Your Freeze-Dried Breastmilk to Foods:
Mixing into first foods to help babies transition easier to solids
Fortifying foods with extra nutrients, immunoprotective properties
Adds extra calories for babies who are struggling with their weight
Adds extra protein and fats to keep babies fuller longer
Helps to balance blood sugars in overweight babies
How You Freeze Dry Breastmilk?
Because your little one’s digestive system is still developing, it is not advised to freeze dry your own breastmilk at home. Handling raw breastmilk can be very dangerous if proper health and safety protocols are not followed. Booby Food is the only Health Canada and AHS approved service based in Calgary, AB that will turn your frozen breastmilk into your very own freeze dried ‘superfood.’ If you’re local, they offer complimentary pick-up and delivery, or they accept shipments of your frozen breastmilk.
Author: Janna Hattingh-owner & founder of Booby Food
For more information, go to www.boobyfood.com and watch behind the scenes videos and photos on their Instagram @iloveboobyfood.
