Anyone remember National Dried Milk?

A delicious orange cake could be made from the orange juice, and I must be in a small minority who actually liked cod liver oil - still do in fact.

I loved the orange juice and the malt. I vaguely remember the dried milk, and Scott’s Emulsion, which I hated.

One of my sons was fed Carnation evaporated milk when he was a baby. He is perfectly healthy at 50, so it can’t have been so bad!

National Dried Milk tins were used by my dad to store maggots for fishing 🤢

They were kept in the cupboard under the stairs and I used to like shaking them (for the rattling sound) until I realised what was inside. I still can’t look at those tins without shuddering and I still have a phobia of maggots. He did use them for screws and nails as well, but I never felt inclined to look inside, just in case!

I loved Rosehip syrup and haliborange not spelt correctly but they sent your tongue bright orange . If we are going down memory lane lardy cakes that where so full of lard the page bag was greasy loads of sugar and plump dried fruits . Buying broken biscuits out the corner shop that was someone's front room of their house. Big tubs of pork dripping in butchers shops which always had spring of rosemary on top. Pure white with a lovely brown tasty jelly under it. Lovely on proper toast ,toasted in front of a real fire . 😋

SueDonim

I also recall that when I had my sons in the 70’s tins of evaporated milk had instructions on the side on how to dilute it to make it suitable for babies feeds!

I remember reading that, too. IIRC it needed to be diluted to a particular extent, and have some sugar added - breast milk apparently being very sweet!

In the nineteen forties Iremember us being given this at school. It was very welcome at home and we ate it by the spoonful. It was lovely.

I remember NDM very well although my mother fed us on Ostermilk.
NDM was used in hospitals both for newborns and older babies.I did my midwifery training in 1966-67, and NDM was the milk of choice for non breast feeding mothers.I dd the first part of my training in a well known London maternity hospital where the mothers had a choice of baby milk, one of which was Carnation!

My Dad was always "inventing" something - he made a bedwarmer out of an empty National Dried Milk tin by putting a light bulb inside it and plugging it into the mains.
I only found this out after wondering why some of our woollen blankets (utility marked) were singed!

Sarnia

I don't want to hijack this topic but another GN has mentioned orange juice, so here goes.
Did anyone out there have a spoonful of Virol every day? I loved the malt flavoured stickiness. It was given to toddlers to build them up. I was very put out when the Virol was replaced by a daily cod liver oil capsule. Yuck!

Yes, I had Virol!

My older DD had National Dried milk, she had dreadful colic even when breastfed and it was the only milk which suited her.

The orange juice was lovely.
I had Sister Laura's, apparently.

Mae, the wartime rations were adequate to maintain good health, after the war too the rations were adequate so I guess your mum's bad health was not due to rationing. Many fed better under rationing than they fed before the war.

Babies with acute fevers in hospital in the late '40s were fed NDM but got Ostermilk if they were accustomed to Ostermilk.I think there was half cream and full cream NDM to choose from according to babies' digestions.

I remember the "baby orange" juice, the malt extract that you licked off a spoon - and, my absolute favourite Rosehip syrup.

When I moved to Sweden I discovered that "rosehip soup" was a thing!

My husband loved cod liver oil when he was a child. He used to swig it from the bottle when his mother wasn't looking.

I also recall that when I had my sons in the 70’s tins of evaporated milk had instructions on the side on how to dilute it to make it suitable for babies feeds!

My son was born mid-70’s. I used to buy NDM but not give to him, I used it to make milky puddings. It was taken off the market not long after due to high salt content causing kidney damage in babies.

Scott’s emulsion was vile. Cod liver oil & malt was just about tolerable. We were given Minadex at times. It was sort of dayglo greeny orange!

After an illness we were given Parrish’s Food, a tonic which at one time was alleged to contain arsenic, although that has now been debunked.

I still have an empty tin of National Dried Milk in my dresser!

I must be the only person on earth that loved Scott’s Emulsion!! I also liked Virol. I gave my children rose hip syrup. An absolute no no now, of course, as is Ribena. I was contemplating collecting rose hips and making some syrup myself, but if it’s as much faff as elderberry cordial I’ll leave well enough alone.

I loved Virol. There was also some stuff, very similar, with the rather sinister name of Radiomalt.

My children had Rosehip syrup. I think it was discontinued due to its high sugar content. I had an awful fishy ,white, gloppy strengthened ! Scott’s Emulsion. Utterly horrid. I loved Virol though. My daughter hated it, still retches at the mention .

Does anyone remember Rose Hip Syrup? We used to collect the rose hips as children, some one collected them in a lorry from which we earned pocket money.

We were all breast fed and I don't remember any dried milk in our household. But orange juice was another matter. Before my dad caught the bus to work, he would bring the three of us our orange juice. I used to say, 'Me first, cos I was born first!' My sisters were unimpressed! We also had 'Radio' malt and - when I was six, and recovering from pneumonia - Virol. How I hated that stuff! It was supposed to make me grow up big and strong - and here I still am!

Oh how I hated the daily dose of malt, and the sticky orange juice.
They must have had some benefits, however, as I grew from a sickly child into a healthy adult and then a sturdy ( chunky?) old woman.

I don't want to hijack this topic but another GN has mentioned orange juice, so here goes.
Did anyone out there have a spoonful of Virol every day? I loved the malt flavoured stickiness. It was given to toddlers to build them up. I was very put out when the Virol was replaced by a daily cod liver oil capsule. Yuck!

My Dad also used the tins for screws, nails etc.

My Mum kept one of those banana shaped bottles in our sideboard for as long as I can remember. When she died and we cleared her house it wasn’t there. I would have kept that.