Jaramillo Soup: A Miracle Potion for Infants

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.”  – Hippocrates 

The practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine believe that the source of any unbalanced health condition is both internal and external. We can strengthen our organ function to support overall health by aligning our lifestyle correctly and using food as a source of healing. Paying extra attention to what we consume on a daily basis and how it affects our body, can be of great help.

The most fascinating thing about Traditional Chinese Medicine practices is the way foods are taken into account when considering its benefits. Today, we evaluate our food intake on the basis of calories, carbohydrates, proteins, and other nutrient sources. However, Traditional Chinese Medicine not only sees food as a source of nutrients but also closely examines how each food affects certain organs.

Food as Medicine 

There is no doubt about the fact that food when consumed wisely as a herbal remedy, can help cleanse and regulate bodily functions. If we try applying the same principle to infants who are supposedly not allowed to have anything but breast milk, great results may be obtained.

We know, it seems quite weird to try and give an infant anything other than a mother’s breast milk. However, we need to understand one simple fact about nourishment that any food consumed wisely in the right quantities and ways, can always be used as a source to heal people, irrespective of their age.

History: Jaramillo Soup 

The story of the discovery of this magical potion is a little sad, but as they say, “necessity is the mother of invention”, and, this soup was once the need of the hour for children dying of malnutrition.

Jaramillo soup was developed by Colombian medical doctor, Hernan Jaramillo, while he was working with malnourished children in a rural area where malnutrition in infants was going unchecked. The hospital was full of kids whose mother’s milk wasn’t enough to suffice the basic nutrient needs of an infant’s body.

Dr. Jaramillo was desperate to help and wanted to create something similar or better than breast milk, in terms of nutrition. He studied the composition of breast milk and broke it down to the basics so that he could get a fresh perspective. He began by testing what soup ingredients could be easily digested by newborn babies. He discovered that infants could actually digest nutrients from whole foods if prepared in a particular way. Hence, optimally fulfilling the nutrient needs of a growing baby.