Interesting how important an animal's diet can be, something I didn't fully appreciate.
Also it's nice to see accounts of how science semi-functioned historically. I'm fascinated by the role of human-factors in our attempts at objective-science.
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You find this out pretty quickly when you have kids. The mother's diet has a huge affect on her milk (and thence, on the infant).
Do you have an example of these huge effects you observed?
Yep, a couple. First one, if the mum eats anything spicy, it gets passed on through the milk and the kid gets colicky. Secondly, one of ours has a milk protein allergy. If the mum drinks cow's milk, the baby gets nasty nappy rash. Both completely repeatable, and tried enough times to go beyond anecdata (imnsho).
One example: Mom drinks coffee close to breastfeeding makes babies hyper and unable to sleep
You are what you eat eats.
That's cute, but partially false, and is the main reason animals eating other animals exists.
Obligate carnivores, as an example, eat other animals not as a shortcut to the diets of the other animals, but because the other animals' livers manufacture amino acids that the obligate carnivores' livers do not.
Should be "You are what what you eat eats."
Chaining more also works nicely: "You are what what what you eat eats eats," or, "You are what what what what what what you eat eats eats eats eats eats," and so on. All of which are true in some small proportion, of course.