Born in 1945, I was a bottle baby. There were no commercial formula products.

[MineralMan]

18. Well, breastfeeding is always the best way to go.

However, not all women can do that. Some don't want to. Today's infant formulas, no doubt, are better for babies than what I was fed at that time. But a heckuva lot of baby boomers got a formula pretty much like the one in my OP. They seem to have done pretty well with that, it seems.

The evaporated milk was sterile. The water was supposed to be boiled before mixing. I'm sure tap water was used, though, by many women.

I'm not suggesting that homemade formula is better than commercial formula that is being sold today. There have been books written, though, about the danger of relying on commercial infant formulas, and some that indicate that the promotion of it in many countries has caused huge problems by replacing breastfeeding in places where supplies of formulas are sketchy at best. Nestle, for example, has been condemned for promoting the use if its products in the third world.

That said, I'm sure the infant formulas being sold in the United States are just fine for feeding infants, as long as the supply chain doesn't fail to make certain enough of it is available, and at a price people can afford to pay. That's not always true, apparently.