Pablum

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Pablum was a cereal for infants marketed by the Mead Johnson Corporation. The trade name is a contracted form of the Latin word pabulum, meaning foodstuff.

Pablum was invented in 1930 by Canadian paediatricians Frederick Tisdall, Theodore Drake, and Alan Brown, in cooperation with nutrition laboratory technician Ruth Herbert, all of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. The cereal marked a breakthrough in nutritional science: it helped prevent rickets, a crippling childhood disease, by ensuring that children have enough vitamin D in their diet. Although Pablum was not the first food designed and sold specifically for babies, it was the first baby food to come pre-cooked 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 was made from a mixture of ground and pre-cooked wheat, oat, corn meal, bone meal, yeast and alfalfa, providing minerals and vitamins A, B₁, B₂, D and E. It is palatable and easily digestible, without causing side effects like diarrhea or constipation. Pablum is also unlikely to cause allergic reactions, as it does not contain eggs, lactose or nuts of any kind.

For a period of 25 years, the Toronto Paediatric Foundation and the Hospital for Sick Children received a royalty on every package of Pablum sold. The Pablum brand was later acquired by the H. J. Heinz Company. As of 2005, Pablum cereals are no longer being produced.

[edit] Other usage

In lower case, the word pablum is often used to describe anything bland, oversimplified and generally unsatisfying, especially a work of literature or speech. This usage is thought to derive from the cereal. Today, the word pablum and the original Latin word pabulum are often used interchangeably. In Canada, pablum remains as a generic reference to any instant baby cereal.

The phrase 'pablum puking', when used in political speech, is used to describe one who seems to lack the ability to digest simple logic or common sense. For example, someone who holds forth the argument that children should be afforded the freedom to play in traffic could rightly be referred to as a 'pablum puking idiot'.