With A Name Like "Formula" It Has To Be Good

It's not out of the ordinary to taste breast milk. The TSA used to demand it, for example, though that's no longer the case.

Indeed, don't be disturbed — the impulse is perfectly normal, though one should be careful when enjoying breast milk directly from the source. As for ice cream, rest assured that like most things on the internet, it's been done.

Breast milk is generally sweet, though a mother's diet can affect the taste, and babies may reject breast milk after a mother eats certain foods like chocolate, spicy dishes and even citrus. If you Google around, you'll see that human breast milk is about 7 percent lactose, which is apparently on the high side for mammals.

None of this answers the question of what formula tastes like. Simply put, it tastes like shit. If breast milk is this awesome sweet wonder, formula is perfectly horrid. I would gladly serve my friends and family breast milk. Formula? Not unless it was on a dare. Which is precisely what we did last night after dinner.

Like many things in life, trying formula happens after other adult beverages are consumed.

Jen gets these samples of Enfamil sent to her, along with various coupons for it. Why, we don't completely know, other than it's probably pretty easy to figure out when a lady is going to pop out a kid and probably a lot easier to figure out when she already has.

So of course it occurred to us (read: me) to try it. And not just from a glass or even a sippy cup, but a bottle itself. I wanted the full effect:

After tasting the stuff, I wasn't sure if the bottle wasn't dirty or something, or even if my tastebuds were somehow failing me. The stuff tasted exactly like — no kidding — oysters. Or at least there was an unmistakable grassy, briny characteristic of a good oyster.

Which is to say, when you think of baby formula, the last thing you would expect to associate with it — at least for me — would probably be "oyster." And not just "oyster" like it's some crappy 'po boy but some bomb-ass fuckin' Duxbury Bay high-end shizz. And it wasn't just me — Goober and Jen immediately tasted it. Was it the added iron? Was it a purposeful scientific formulation that mimicked something innate in baby nature? We had no idea. All we knew was that it was no wonder so many babies seem like such sour pusses.

After a few minutes trying desperately to unclench my pursed lips and untaste the surface of my tongue, I finally got to the point where I could appreciate the oyster-y qualities of the formula. I thought about making a bisque out of the remainder. Better sense eventually took over and I dumped it out. And quickly replaced it with a Coors. I wasn't trying to be an asshole, but I just needed to know that it wasn't something bad about the bottle. And if there's one taste I really know, it's that of the Banquet Beer.

Now let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've tasted the Banquet Beer from one of Breastflow's patented 2-in-1 nipples. It's actually a great way to, er, nurse a beer: You never drink too much at one time. And it had the added benefit of showing me up close how I almost drown Animal when I try to feed him.

Which just does to show, it's never too late on a Saturday night to learn a thing or two.