Except that's not food, so actually no one ate food

Cereal Grains (Whole Grain Wheat (35.0%), Maize Semolina (28.6%), Wheat Flour), Sugar,
Glucose Syrup, Wheat Starch, Brown Sugar, Sunflower Oil, Vitamins and Minerals (Calcium, Niacin, Pantothenic Acid, Iron, Vitamin D, Folic Acid, Vitamin B6, Riboflavin), Fat-Reduced Cocoa Powder (1.2%), Salt, Icing Sugar, Cocoa Powder (0.5%), Natural Flavouring, Raising Agent: Sodium Bicarbonate, Acidity Regulator: Tripotassium Phosphate, Maize Starch.
https://www.nestle-cereals.com/uk/en/products-promotions/brands/cookie-crisp-brand/cookie-crisp

PP, you and Joseph most-likely aren't malnourished and get your riboflavin, folic acid, and B12 from other available sources. Marmites' loved by the perpetually malnourished!...LIKE BRITS!

If you have a look at the Jimbo's big bag'o'trivia page for Folic Acid, under sources of folate, quite a lot of foods contain folic acid and deficiency is unusual with a western diet.

The point is though that taking a supplement to make sure is a really easy and simple thing to do to significantly reduce the risk of a rare but nasty problem. There's a nice graph here from the CDC showing the rates of Spina Bifida and how folate advice has changed that rate in the U.S.
>> ^notarobot:

So how did women successfully give birth to normal healthy babies before the invention of folic acid supplements?

So how did women successfully give birth to normal *healthy babies before the invention of folic acid supplements?

but asserting that Iraq has an influx of fast food from america...
you won't find me disagreeing with you that nutrition plays a large part in the development of a fetus. And I would also agree that they have a very large stress factor, (having bombs going off, foreign troops invading your homeland and numerous other factors Iraqi's have to live with on a daily basis)
But imagine the scale of fast food joints that there would have to be to accomplish what your talking about. Heck, do they even have any of our westernized food joints over there ? Before the war we had sanctions placed against them and U.S. businesses could not do business with Iraq.

we are the original fast food nation (many more FF joints for a much longer time), so where are all the reports of birth defects due to FF?

noting there is a difference between "birth defects" and things like being born malnourished, jaundiced, IBS, etc...

In reply to this comment by jwray:
Poor nutrition, such as folic acid deficiency, has been proven to cause birth defects. Most vitamin/mineral deficiency in the mother could possibly harm the fetus. 3 out of 4 deaths in the USA are caused by diseases or complications of diseases that are strongly linked to diet, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, cancer, and diabetes. Stress and greasy fast food can aggravate inflammatory bowel disease and irritable bowel syndrome, which can both cause malabsorption.

I am feeding both my children -19 months and 6 months at the moment and plan on doing so until they self wean.

I find it interesting that so many people are disgusted and replused by feeding an older child, but (i'll bet) none of you actually find drinking the milk of a differnt species, that was never intended for human consumption when created fine. Just because it comes to you in a sterile plastic container with a picture of a nice smiling, waving lady on the front does not mean it never came from a smelly, sweaty dirty cow in a padock somewhere and was created for a baby cow.

How can you say that those children are not receiving benifit from the milk they are recieving? It is far better for them then cows milk.

I read through the blurb in a baby and todler cookbook I have and breastmilk contains
*protien
*fat
*essential fatty acids
*carbohydrates
*vitamin A
*thiamin (vitamin b1)
*riboflavin (vitamin b2)
*niacin (vitamin b3)
*vitamin b12
*folic acid
*vitamin c
*vitamin d
*vitamin e
*iron
*calcium
*zinc

Many of those are not found in cows milk, as baby cows don't really need to be to clever, they just need fatening up.

I could go on about this for ages....