Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Tiger's Milk Recipe

Tiger's Milk – The Breast Milk Manufacturing Smoothie!!

Hi there. I'm just a mum who wants to share the miracles of "Tiger Milk", a recipe for a natural healthy nutrient packed smoothie that from my own and other's experience has the benefits of dramatically increasing your milk supply when breastfeeding. Its hard to know what will happen when you give birth, and one of the things that is a mystery to me is breastfeeding. There is so much pressure to breastfeed and as a result it can be a stressful time. I tried everything to increase my milk supply when I didn't get the engorged breasts on the 2nd day, and baby wasn't putting on weight. I was put on a drug to help, sipped teas, tried to express, nothing worked... I had to start supplementing with formula, until a friend introduced me to "TIGER MILK". WE didn't look back!! I wish that my midwife had put me onto it before giving birth! AFrom a piddly pathetic milk supply, I suddenly felt what full breasts felt like, the full let down response and the squirting milk!! Try it for a week, you should notice a dramatic change to your supply in about 2 days.

I started with 2 a day and then reduced to 1 in the morning first thing, then every 2nd day, and then when I felt I needed to boost my milk supply. Sometimes the shortcut one did the trick too! I decided that the nuts, milk and the brewer’s yeast were the ACTIVE ingredients.


SHOPPING LIST:

Raw unsalted almonds small packets of each will be fine for a start
Sesame seeds
Sunflower seeds
Pumpkin seeds

Apple juice
Bananas

Kelp powder (health food stores??)
Brewers yeast (baking aisle of your local supermarket)
2 cupsCarob powder (Bin Inn has it)
2 cups Whey powder (Instant milk powder/Plain protein shake powder works too)

PREPARATIONS:

This makes it faster to prepare your smoothie in the morning when there isn’t a lot of time to potter around and you feel really tired. You don’t want to start measuring tsp of each thing!!

1. Soak Overnight: (the seeds swell up, and I think make the nutrients more likely to be absorbed by the body when processed in a blender – I call it the potentiating process)

1 Tbsp almonds (raw, unsalted)
1 Tbsp sesame seeds
1 Tbsp sunflower seeds
1 Tbsp pumpkin seeds

strain, rinse and blend. Store in fridge. Enough for 2 - 3 smoothies.

2. Dry ingredients: Mix well together and store in an airtight container in pantry:

½ cup kelp powder
1 cup whey powder or protein shake
½ cup carob powder
1 cup brewers yeast



RECIPE:

Blend the following together and enjoy!! (Its not exactly the most appetizing smoothy but give it a go!! You won’t be sorry!!)

2 Tbsp of the nut/seed mix (half)
1 Tbsp of the dry powder mix
1 cup apple juice / milk
1 small banana

Ideas/ tips:

I used milk instead of apple juice if I ran out.
I used protein shake powder as I couldn’t find plain whey powder. I've since discovered that normal instant milk powder or 'Complan" could work too. A bit cheaper than the protein shake.
Carob powder can be found at the Bulk Bins shop in Henderson
Kelp Powder – maybe at an organic shop. Not an essential ingredient I don’t think, I didn’t bother and it still worked for me.
Brewers Yeast available at most supermarkets in the baking aisle
I made up more of the nut mix e.g. ¼ cup of each, so it made up more smoothies. Later I just put the seeds in my cereal/ salads and didn’t bother with the whole soaking and blending business.

My Quick short cut version:

½ cup of milk
1 banana
1-2 tsp carob
1-2 tsp brewers yeast

Other breast milk boosters:

Drink 2 glasses of water while you are breastfeeding – make a point of refilling your bottle/ glass when you are done feeding, so its there when you need it again. Easier said than done. I definitely notice a difference to my supply when I drank enough water. You need to drink it while you are feeding, not later. Your body has the signal to start making more milk while you are feeding, which is when you need the water in your digestive system.

Floradix tonic – comes in an old fashioned bottle – available at supermarket with all the vitamins etc.
Eating regular meals with protein, fruit and veg, and whole grains.