B (4:03)

You know, clearly, like, you thankfully spend a lot of time, you know, individually and also kind of in your kind of social media forum, like, engaged with people who have, like, very specific concerns, some of which might be for you, like, feel quite outlandish, like, oh, my gosh, someone thinks this about nutrition. Like, someone thinks, like, red dye 40 is the source of, like, any cold that their child has ever gotten. What are kind of the questions, the sincere questions people have come to you with about your area of expertise that have most surprised you or that feel most kind of untethered from kind of any evidence that you or kind of any nutritional scientist might be familiar with?

A (4:52)

I would say seed oils is a big one.

B (4:55)

All right, talk to us about seed oils.

A (4:57)

Yeah, I mean, it's not my favorite topic to talk about, but I can't answer this question without bringing it up just because it flies in the face of nutrition science research. It really does. And so it's an example of what happens a lot on social media where people will take a mechanism of action. They'll say linoleic acid leads to arachidonic acid and that causes inflammation. And so seed oils are causing inflammation in people and causing chronic disease. And you know, there's so many, so many examples of how a mechanism can be true. But when it goes, when we actually look at a human model, it doesn't actually pan out because humans are complex and just doesn't always work like it does in a lab when you're actually looking at a human model. And so, and this is a really good example, there's just no data, there's no evidence to suggest that seed oils are inflaming us or harming our health. And in fact, quite the opposite when we look at epidemiological data and you know, when we look at, at trials of people who are consuming seed oils and again, seed oils are consumed all around the world by people. So it's very interesting that like in the US we're really focusing on this. Where a little bit of the truth lies is, you know, seed oils are very cheap, they're highly processed and so they don't have a lot of flavor. So when you like compare them to like an olive oil, right? Olive oil has a pretty strong flavor. So because of that they're used in a lot of these foods that food manufacturers are creating a lot of these ultra processed foods and particularly low nutrient ultra processed foods. And so we tend to over consume those foods in this country. And so we're eating a lot of them. And that can be harmful. When you over consume anything, it can be problematic, right, because it's a fat source and that's problematic. But if you're just like making a stir fry with some sunflower oil, I mean, my mother in law is from Romania and she constantly uses quote unquote seed oils, what we call vegetable oils, to make her food and she's cooking vegetables and things like that with them. And so again, there's just not evidence that they're harmful. But because social media has really leaned into the seed oils idea and that like, because it kind of plays into this idea that we're poisoning the people in the country, right?

B (7:09)

It's like the big olive oil conspiracy. It's like the olive oil like producers and manufacturers got together and Were like, we're gonna demonize seed oil so more people buy our products.

A (7:21)

Well, and another layer here, by the way, is seed oils are affordable. Right. They're much more affordable than an. Than olive oil. And this is where it can be harmful. Right. So if you're demonizing this oil that is affordable for people and, you know, they're using it to cook vegetables in or, you know, whatever, and you're saying that they have to be consuming olive oil, but they don't have the. They don't have the budget for olive oil. You're just. You're causing unnecessary anxiety and shame in a person that, like, there's no reason for it.

B (7:50)

Or maybe there is a reason for it.

A (7:53)

Yeah. No logical reason.

B (7:54)

No logical reason. No defensible logical or moral reason. But I do want to talk about baby formula, because certainly, I mean, I'm so thankful that I was able to breastfeed all three of my children. That that was something that my body permitted me to do, that it was something that I had the time and the resources to be able to prioritize doing that all three of my children latched easily, and that that could be part of my experience with each of my three kids when they were little. Sometimes one of those things isn't true for a new mom, and sometimes all of those things aren't true. And it has been noticeable to me, kind of the increasing sense of not only, like, breast is best, but if you're not breastfeeding your children, somehow you're failing. And alongside, kind of the increasing, like, not demonization is too strong of a word, but like, denigration formula, broadly. And then kind of all of the swirling questions around, like, what is in formula? What is good formula? What is bad formula? So what do you have to say to kind of any of that? And what should any of us, who, of course, care that any and every small human gets the nutrition that we would want for our own children, should know, as we try to be, like, productive participants in conversations around formula.

A (9:26)

Yeah, so formula has certainly been something that the Maha movement has talked a lot about. I don't exactly know why. It probably speaks to more of, like, this kind of glorification that we see about, like, moms who are at home with their kids and kind of this idea of, like, going back in time and living like our ancestors lived. Lived more close to nature and that sort of thing. Infant formula is incredible scientific advancement. I mean, I'm just, like, blown away by the science. And like you, Chelsea, I breastfed both of my Children. And I was fortunate enough to be at home with them, you know, working from home and able to do that. And so it's not as if I'm like partisan towards formula because I used it myself. It's just from a scientific perspective, it's an incredible advancement. I mean, infants who would have otherwise died without a reliable source of nutrition now get to live and thrive. Right. Because we've been able, through many scientific advancements, be able to essentially as closely as possible mimic breast milk, which is so cool.

B (10:31)

My husband was a formula fed baby.

A (10:34)

I was a formula fed baby.

B (10:37)

I'm so thankful both you and here in the world, right? We're a better place for both of you.

A (10:42)

Yeah, exactly. Well, and what's really cool about it is that it's opened up the opportunity to not only allow babies to live, but also to thrive. Right. And to be healthy and live full lives. So what's interesting about formula is there's always like, advancements that are coming out. Right. And what I think is interesting about Maha and the Operation Storkspeed, I think it's a long time coming for us to do a thorough review of all of the nutrients, because from a science perspective, there are some nutrients that we could be looking at. We can be looking at potentially lowering iron levels and also maybe looking at these human milk oligosaccharides. And there's some cool advancements that like a lot of formula companies have kind of done on their own. But from like a federal perspective, we haven't actually looked at that in a long time. And so I think that's great. What I think is not so great is what's coming out of all of this is this idea that formula is toxic, particularly like in the United States versus the eu. And I've done a lot of videos on this where I like, compare the formulas and they're like pretty much exactly the same, like, with very little variability. And the seed oils always come into this as well. And for some reason, there's a narrative out there that, like, only we are using seed oils in the United States, and that's not true. I mean, every infant formula, to my knowledge, every infant formula in the entire world uses seed oils. And the reason for that is because of the polyunsaturated fatty acid content, which more closely mimics the fatty acid composition of breast milk. Because if you just use lactose, if you just use cow's milk, which is what most formulas use, cow's milk is not as high in polyunsaturated fatty acids as human milk. So what you have to do is you have to take the milk, and then you have to add in those polyunsaturated fatty acids. And you do that with these vegetable oils. And so that's why they're included. And so there's a scientific basis for it and a reason. It's not this conspiratorial idea that they're trying to hurt the children. It's quite the opposite. They're trying to really help the children. And so I think that's the fear from a science perspective, in terms of this anti science movement or this anti expert movement, that, you know, everybody has these ideas, and they all should be, like, on the same playing field. When there's people who have been studying this field forever and ever, and particularly with infant formula, and we should be listening to them about what an infant needs.