Infant formula

That is a source of funding that helps tie pediatricians to community resources to help lift up community-based programs.

We can't have this conversation without acknowledging the fact that Formula marketing undermines breastfeeding and formula marketing is actually targeted to the populations least likely to breastfeed.

So we have to discourage that type of targeted marketing.

And now that marketing has become even more innovative with online social media influencers that are making it seem even more difficult to breastfeed than it really is.

It's ridiculous, and it's one of those things that we work on all the time to try to make change where we can.

Michael, there was a question about the safety of infant formula and concern among parents and the safety that is in the industry.

Is there a path forward here, something that would satisfy all parties?

We certainly believe there is, and we're working to achieve that, Jeff.

So we are working with FDA.

We're working with Cornell University.

We're working with many of the infant formula manufacturers that are members of ours, the dairy industry partners.

processors that provide milk powders to the infant formula industry are members of ours.

We think the rest of the time it is medically necessary for a variety of reasons.

And we can talk about how C-section born babies, that microbiome is different, but also feeding mode, formula usage.

Formula doesn't have the right prebiotics from breast milk, the human milk oligosaccharides that feed the baby biome, specifically bifidobacterium.

And we think it's diet.

We think it's truly the lack of fiber that we have in the country that's leading to this.

But the first couple of weeks of weaning a baby, if they're having a bit of free puree, it's totally fine.

Most of their nutrition is still coming from their breast milk or their formula milk.

Anyway, yeah.

The other sorts of baby food you can get in the shops now, I mean, apart from the pureed fruit, is there a concern about the amount of salt in some of those? No, they're very strictly regulated.

Yeah.

So definitely no raw milk for babies.

And we do want your breast milk or a formula milk being your main milk drink until one year.

Yeah.

Well, it's just flour milk.

So, okay, what's so special about that Bailey? Well, this flour milk was one of the very first recipes anybody had ever made for baby formula.

Okay, right? Yeah, that's good.

He started selling it almost immediately after he invented it, advertising his product as something that could be given to babies who couldn't be breastfed.

Nestle had their first real controversy.

Oh yeah.

Their biggest seller at the time was still baby formula, but their profits were kind of their evening out.

They needed to find a way to start selling

We talk about some behind the scenes stuff going on with him and Taylor Farms and the back and forth over the cyclospora cases and the litigation there.

We talk about infant formula.

We talk about congressional hearings.

We talk about his food safety advocacy.

It's just kind of my personality.

I'm kind of generally upbeat and things kind of roll off my back.

I think what's disheartening is You know, this morning I sent off a second round of letters to the Senate Help Committee and the House Oversight Committee for the FDA because they've essentially ignored a letter that I wrote to them in June about infant formula.

And they've ignored it.

Exactly.

I think there's a difference between commoditization or commodities, right? As in, that's why I think Amazon has been so successful in that when you have, you know, baby formula or, you know, toilet paper or sponges, whatever, if you need something.

Interesting

combination.

Okay, cool.

Baked beans, I don't know.

For someone who doesn't have children to come up with baby formulas as a first example.

You know what's funny? Fascinating.

So I'm curious, what specific foods? Obviously, you don't have anybody use infant formulas or anything like that because that's all made the same horrible thing.

Oh, the infant formula is toxic.

Yeah, you know what it is.

It's skim milk.

And babies can't make cholesterol.

Mother's milk is very hot, rich in cholesterol and has a special enzyme to ensure that 100% of that cholesterol is absorbed.

Now, there's no cholesterol in infant formula.

And the babies need this cholesterol for their cell membranes, for all of their organs, for hormone production.