Typical scientology.
There is a situation in the US with a shortage of infant formula.
An opportunity to move in with some Hubbard “tech” — the “barley formula.”
I hope nobody falls for this. Hubbard claims it is a formula used by the Romans 2200 years ago — that “barley sustained the Roman legions” and that this concoction, featuring a liberal dose of Karo syrup (cornstarch syrup) and cow’s milk is better than breast milk and commercial baby formula. Here is the page giving the ingredients and method of preparation from the Scientology Handbook.
Like much of the “tech” Hubbard announced concerning things physical (very much including the Purification Program), his claims of benefits are dubious at best and dangerous at worst.
I have to disagree on this one. I raised my son on this formula as he was to large at birth to feed him on breast milk. (5kg) I researched barley first and was very suspicious about the Karo syrup so I left the sugar out. He grew up fine, is now 6’4, a healthy athlete and not sugar depended as suggested in earlier comments. However, I knew many Scientolgists whom fed the formula and over did the syrup, hence the children had their teeth rotting.
Its not easy to purchase raw (uncooked) organic honey. And cooked honey which is almost all that is easily available is just as bad as refined sucrose! For anyone, let alone infant. And Karo Syrup – my God! The worst crap to pour down a little one’s gullet. Albeit with the best of intentions you’re setting up a lifelong sugar dependency from Day One. I’m not a mother and have never been but I’ve always read a great deal on nutrition.
I’ve always regretted not nursing my baby, but, L Ron said “there are no Guernsey women anymore “.
How does he know?
Just another display of his hatred toward women.
And maybe some jealousy? Over something he could not do? Sounds crazy but I always had that thought (which I suppressed).
Would be better to ferment the barley and drink it yourself instead of feeding it to junior.
I quit staff when I birthed my first son because I didn’t want to use this or any formula; I wanted to breast feed and I did. My baby boy was never sick ever but I saw a lot of runny noses in the staff nursery, which was a horror show all on it’s own and a story for another day.
Kudos.
Hubbard’s “routes onto the Bridge” list has the opposite “quitting the Bridge” list.
“Routes Off the Bridge” list includes:
a) Wise Mothers refusing the Hubbard baby barley formula
And the source reference is the all time best
“if it is not true for you, it is not true”
————————————
Imagine telling your kids about the Xenu story, and that mom and dad are doing five long exorcism steps to get rid of body-thetans?
Scientology’s downsides are overwhelming.
There are far more “routes off the Bridge” than on.
This falls under the same issue as Jehovah’s Witnesses not letting their kids get needed blood transfusions or Christian Scientist parents having the practitioner pray over the terminally ill child rather than call the doctor. The difference here is that LRH thought this up off the top of his head rather than claim that God had revealed it to him.
Wrong Alcoboy, Hubbard did not think this stuff up off the top of his head. Instead he pulled it straight out of his ass. This is the same source of all his “research” and yields the same results. None at best, bad at worst.
Okay. Good way to put it.
Barley formula turns out to be a Victorian era invention. Hubbard plagiarized much of his ideas and material, or claimed the work of others around him, so he doesn’t even deserve that much credit.
Google Books turns up a lot of references to similar formulas between about 1890 and 1915 — the period of Hubbard’s youth — including in popular magazines like Harper’s Bazaar in 1907 (the first of 9 formulas with varying proportions depending on age):
“7 percent top milk, sugar, barley gruel or boiled water”.
So he was most likely remembering something from his childhood, or had it as an unconscious memory that got incorporated as a detail into a past life fantasy when he was playing around with hypnosis and “reverie” states, when such actual buried recollections get woven into the mind’s confabulation of imaginative false “memories.”
For a time in the early 80s there were women with children at the Int Base. We were told that they were “squirreling the barley formula”. Translated from Scientologese that means they were “doing it wrong”.
From which it is easy to conclude that they were actually using it and that the babies were naturally getting severely ill. It is not possible to do barley formula right, like any of Hubbard’s bright ideas it just doesn’t work.
It is hard for a full-time Sea Org woman to do breast feeding on a 22 hour a day work schedule, so it probably seemed like a good idea at first.
This misadventure was part of why children were then banned in the Sea Org, leading to the atrocity of forced abortions, pregnant women in the RPF and other horrors in the late 80s and to this day.
Yet another way Hubbard managed to damage his most loyal followers.
Boil for 7 hours lmao
I’m not a mother so my opinion on baby formula isn’t worth much if anything but…boiling the barley for 6 HOURS? What modern mother could possibly have time for this?
This is purely anecdotal but I knew a Scientology couple who had a kid late in life – both in their mid-forties. She smoked. Not sure if she smoked during her pregnancy – probably not, but she was definitely a smoker before the pregnancy and resumed the habit after the baby was born. Being slim was extremely important to her and she was very proud of having lost nearly all of the baby weight within a month of the birth. She worked at it; dieting very strenuously. To feed the infant from day one hey went the barley formula route. Swore by it as the healthiest thing for the infant, etc. Well, that baby was quite unhealthy. Severe asthma, allergies, frequent colds. One thing after another. A very sickly baby. Parents hardly got any sleep between the poor little thing’s various issues, not the least of which was the kid waking up gasping for air in the middle of the night. In fairness I’m not saying it was the barley formula. Possibly her smoking; weak genes; long term continual stress for both of them prior to conceiving. This was not a planned baby. Both of them were long term Cl V staff. Continual stress, poor nutrition. So very likely the barley formula wasn’t what made the kid continually sick. On the other hand its a good bet that it didn’t help.
My only exposure to Hubbard’s “barley formula” was when I was shipped off to Flag in the early 80s as a result of the mission holders massacre. Missions were ordered to get a certain number of staff sent to Flag for training and quit ripping off orgs.
There was a young woman there with a baby that had also been dumped at Flag for training. She was having some sort of difficulty with taking proper care of her child as a result of the unrealistic course schedule for a nursing mom. There was a very young sea arrrgh member who was sent to handle her. This kid was totally clueless and barely breeding age himself trying to give her advice on how to take care of her child using the “barley formula”. This “Guernsey type gal” (Hubbard’s degrading description in the Barley Formula bulletin) was perfectly capable of taking care of her child if left to her own devices. I didn’t see her around anymore after that incident. I hope she told the wet behind the ears little fuck of a sea arrrgh member to shove his orders up his ass and then blew right outta the ‘mecca of technical perfection’, never to return.
Yes! I hope she did tell that little shit to shove off.
I got stressed and sick while breast feeding and while ill stopped giving milk. It was hard in my kid going cold turkey tho formula.
Then a Scientologist wanted to help.
Yeah, super helpful. I was introduced to the Barley Formula. I believed it must be safe. LRH said so. We did it and my son barely grew and was super skinny. I figured it was genetic.
Eventually, he got to solid food. I regret feeding him that crap. And inadvertently causing him to be malnourished.
A case could be made that barley formula amounts to child abuse, since it can lead to the medical problems prevously documented. And straight up child endangerement if the version substituting honey for karo syrup is used.
Child Protective Services and hospitals in areas where this crap is being spread should get a heads up to be on the lookout for babies afflicted with this stuff. And the FDA might want to issue a warning that this stuff has not been approved in any way, shape, or form as a substitute for real baby formula.
I have read that no baby should be given honey until after age 1 due to infant botulism the honey can cause in young babies.
that only applies to raw honey Cindy
Someone should contact the FDA and see if they’re familiar with the concoction and their opinion on it.
Or better yet, see if the FDA will issue a bulletin flat out saying this barley crap is dangerous, and not approved in any way, shape, or form for use as a substitute for real baby formula.
Scientology will still continue to peddle it while calling the FDA a bunch of wogs.
Oh good grief. I actually predicted this when I heard about the shortage of baby formula. “Hmm, I’ll bet the clams will promote their stupid barley crap!” And here they are!
I just knew the clams would push this at the time of a serious baby formula shortage. I must be psychic. And of course they suggest using honey to feed an infant/young baby, which everyone knows can be fatal. Well, almost everyone. Obviously, clams are in the dark about this, among other things.
Here I go again…
My first regular job in the private sector (I had two paper routes consecutively and a publically funded grass cutting job) was a part time janitorial gig at two candy shops in downtown Minneapolis. Both shops had glass display cases, two display windows, two glass doors, and were fronted with white glass. LRH had a distinct method of washing glass. His method was never used.
That stuff makes big, dull babies. Just ask around.
Yeah, Julian Swartz when he was born … not a cute kid, but probably not due to barley and corn syrup …
There’s evidence for “dangerous at worst” in this study: Malnutrition associated with a formula of barley water, corn syrup, and whole milk
Abstract
Five infants, age 1 to 7 months, were given a formula of barley water, whole milk, and corn syrup (Karo) or honey. Three patients had subnormal growth, two fit the criteria for failure to thrive, and two demonstrated a microcytic hypochromic anemia. The delayed growth and anemia were corrected by institution of a standard infant formula and nutrient supplementation. The barley water formula provides less than the recommended daily allowance of iron and vitamins A and C. The illnesses of these infants and the deficiencies of the diet illustrate the importance of obtaining a careful dietary
history for all infants not receiving standard diets.
R J Fabius, R J Merritt, P M Fleiss, J M Ashley Am J Dis Child. 1981 Jul;135(7):615-7.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/6894664/
Similar articles
Malnutrition in infants receiving cult diets.
Sanders TA.
Br Med J. 1979 Mar 10;1(6164):682-3. doi: 10.1136/bmj.1.6164.682-c.
PMID: 435722
From what I recall reading in the past, scientologists of course have excuses and explanations for bad outcomes, all too typically blaming them on improper preparation and application of Hubbard’s formula. The bottom line is that the cult concoction doesn’t have anywhere near the sort of necessary and crucial nutrients found in breast milk, or in or proper modern baby formula (which is still not an ideal substitute for breast milk), so there’s no way it could really work any more than the ‘introspection rundown’ can cure psychological breakdowns and mental illness; while some may get away with it in some cases without obvious bad effects or significant harm, it’s still a fundamentally bad idea with high risk of subtle damage and bad outcomes.
This is another case in which Hubbard is really just pushing popular, mistaken or unhealthy ideas from his late Victorian upbringing to the repressed immediate postwar period, in this case that women breastfeeding is somehow undesirable, and that modern scientific-seeming concoctions should be superior.
Here’s another medical study that shows Hubbard’s barley formula is quackery at best, and potentially lethal at worst.
https://tinyurl.com/2p8fdvmf
Infantile scurvy: an old diagnosis revisited with a modern dietary twist
American Journal of Clinical Dermatology (Vol. 8, Issue 2)
Authors: Cynthia J. Burk and Rona Molodow
Date: March-April 2007
Of note:
“We present a case of an otherwise healthy 2-year-old Caucasian girl who presented with refusal to walk secondary to pain in her lower extremities, generalized irritability, sleep disturbance, and malaise. The girl’s parents described feeding the patient an organic diet recommended by the Church of Scientology that included a boiled mixture of organic whole milk, barley, and corn syrup devoid of fruits and vegetables. Physical examination revealed pale, bloated skin with edematous, violaceous gums and loosening of a few of her teeth. Dermatologic findings included xerosis, multiple scattered ecchymoses of the extremities, and perifollicular hemorrhage. Laboratory and radiographic evaluation confirmed the diagnosis of scurvy. The patient showed dramatic improvement after only 3 days of treatment with oral ascorbic acid and significant dietary modification.”
Wow… honey added to barley formula? I am a beekeeper and that is just wildly dangerous. Honey can contain botulism spore and should NEVER be given to babies.
Just wow.