Dr. Marion Nestle, longtime NYU professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health, with additional faculty roles at UC San Francisco and Cornell, is best known for analyzing the intersections of food, politics, and health, often exposing how government policy, corporate lobbying, and food industry marketing shape what we eat.
What’s happening with infant formula?
I can hardly believe that infant formula, one of the most tightly regulated products on the market, is in the news, but it sure is. Let’s start with RFK Jr.
Amazing. I thought infant formula companies were already doing that. Without question, millions of Americans were raised on the existing infant formulas and have done pretty well on them.
RFK Jr does not like high fructose corn syrup (most formulas don’t use this) or seed oils. I will be interested to see what his FDA proposes as replacements.
But now we have a new formula company, Little Spoon, putting full-page ads in the New York Times. “Parents,” it says, “deserve to trust the food that fules their family.” It says it uses better ingredients and tests for banned chemicals.
And why is this a step forward? Alas, we have the ByHeart example—a “better-for-you” formula unfortunately—and tragically—contaminated with toxic bacteria.
What’s especially troubling about the ByHeart tragedy is that its products are still on shelves.
- State officials still finding recalled ByHeart infant formula on store shelves
- South Carolina warns Botulism Contaminated Infant Formula Still on Market
Food safety lawyer Bill Marler has plenty to say about this: To Safer Infant Formulas and doing away with Botulism, Cronobacter sakazakii, Salmonella and Bacillus cereus
And then there are Consumer Reports’ investigations of heavy metals in formulas, lead and arsenic, among them.
No wonder parents are concerned. No wonder there is now a market for better tested formula.
What should parents do while all this is going on?
To avoid pathogens, buy canned and bottled formula that has been Pasteurized.
To avoid toxic metals? That’s harder to do since most formulas are not tested.
All of this is yet another reason to breastfeed, if at all possible. And to wean babies off of formula as soon as they are ready.
The post What’s happening with infant formula? appeared first on Food Politics by Marion Nestle.
Marion Nestle is Paulette Goddard Professor of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health, Emerita, at New York University, which she chaired from 1988-2003 and from which she officially retired in September 2017. She is also Visiting Professor of Nutritional Sciences at Cornell. She earned a Ph.D. in molecular biology and an M.P.H. in public health nutrition from the University of California, Berkeley, and has been awarded honorary degrees from Transylvania University in Kentucky (2012) and from the City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College (2016). In 2023, she was awarded The Edinburgh Medal (for science and society).
