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5am I'm up with a crisp Celsius energy drink running 12 miles today. Grab a green juice, quick change and head to work. Meetings, workshops. One more Celsius. No slowing down. Working late, but obviously still meeting the girls for a little dancing. Celsius Live Fit. Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now@celsius.com look
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at how they greenwash these things. It's insane. They're normal. Name brand Pure Bliss by Similac Irish Farms. But start with Nara Organic. Avoid at all costs. This thing has a 0 out of 100 score.
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We're going to be regulating baby formula companies so they're giving you something that is as close to mother's milk as we could get.
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B
Let's all find data and evidence and the truth about what's in the food
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C
supply when it comes to formula. Not good. That's ridiculous.
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Foreign.
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C
Was no one gonna tell me how truly horrible for babies baby formula actually is. None of you, none of you were going to alert me. I decided to go down this rabbit hole a few days ago after it was uncovered that throughout the last several months one of the leading healthier baby formula brands by Heart Nutrition, what was considered to be one of the leading formula brands in our country, spread a botulism outbreak all across the country leading to national recalls that ended up poisoning 48 babies who were sickened since 2023 over their products. All 48 of them ended up hospitalized. From my understanding, no deaths have been formally reported as of yet. But this was one of the organic whole milk formulated infant formulas, one that many of my friends have used over the past few years in their journey as new parents and I started poking around on this subject. I have discovered the most horrifying things about how we feed our babies that as a new mom makes me want to put myself into a coma. Everyone out there likes to hate on breastfeeding because breastfeeding moms are trying too hard or they're making everyone else feel bad who doesn't have the right supply or they're telling you breast is best so you're somehow lesser than as a mom if you're formula feeding. I'm not interested really in any of that. But I do find it fascinating that all of the demonization related related to feeding babies that you are seeing on the Internet, from the Internet moms right now is geared towards breastfeeding. When in reality our collective outrage as new parents should be at how the United States of America is regulating the formula industry or not regulating the ingredients that are going into our baby's formula. The complete lack of appropriate coverage when something does go dramatically wrong, like this huge outbreak that's been going on for years and very few outlets have ever talked about it, and then formulating that outrage into calling for an actual difference to be made to protect our kids. A few weeks ago, I sat down with Secretary RFK Robert F. Kennedy, our HHS Secretary here in Washington D.C. at the White House new media row and he told me this was for an event that was celebrating the one year anniversary of the Trump administration. They were looking forward into the next year in office. And he told me that one of the primary priorities of Health and Human Services this year is to take a much closer look at infant formula. Doing very stringent studies on all of the ingredients, especially in ingredients that may be contributing to toxic levels of heavy metals and chemicals that are poisoning our children, releasing those studies this spring and then making appropriate policy changes in our country to protect the next generation of children from ever having any of these issues. You may remember this. Here's a little bit on the dietary guidelines front. I know a huge component of what you're working on this year has to do with infant formula, which is so huge we're starting to see the MAHAWK crowd pay a lot of attention to this. And the state of Florida is doing really great work in the last few days investigating what's going on with infant formula country. Can you give us a little bit of light into Operation Stork Speed and what we can expect?
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A
Well, Operation Storkspeed has two major initiatives. One is we're doing for the first time comprehensive testing of contaminants in baby formula of particularly heavy metals like cadmium, lead, arsenic and mercury, and then also PFA asses and other contaminants which should not be in our baby formula. Unfortunately, it is and we're going to be releasing the the details and the findings of those studies in I think around late April or early May. So sometime this. Right. And then the other thing that we're doing is we're re examining the list of nutrients that are required for baby formula. Right now there's 30 nutrients required. That list is 30 years old. That science archaic, it's expired. We now know a lot more about the micronutrients that are required for brain growth and good physical growth and the fortification of the immune system. And a lot of those nutrients are not in baby formula. We're doing that comprehensive reexamination of what should be in that nutrient list and then we'll change the regulations.
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He also said as much in a press conference recently here in D.C. that ruffled a lot of feathers, saying that our government is focused on completely revamping how we approach baby formula so that it formula can be the closest that it possibly can be to God's infant formula breast milk. I know everyone thinks it's so weird when Secretary Kennedy starts talking about breastfeeding, but I for one, as a breastfeeding mom and so grateful that men are starting to talk about this, especially in a position of significance and influence like our Secretary of Health and Human Services. Because if anyone should be talking about the benefits of breastfeeding, it probably should be our HHS secretary. Here's what he had to say about it then.
- [06:29]
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At hhs, we are making safe, reliable and nutritious infant formula available to American mothers. Right now we're doing the most comprehensive studies ever done on contaminants in our infant formulas. Things like cadmium, mercury and lead and PFA asses. Those studies will be out in April and we will be able to see all of the different contaminants that are in the formula. We also are revising the recommendations for nutrients. Right now there are 30 required nutrients. That list is 30 years old. And it's not based on good science. It's archaic science. And now we're changing that so that we're going to be regulating baby formula companies. So they are giving you something that is as close to mother's milk as we can get. Provide all the nutrients that your baby needs for brain growth, for physical growth and for good health and for proper immune system development.
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C
Oh, I love this man, by the way. He's right to crack down on baby formula, especially the toxins found in baby formula. And it's not just crackpot RFK that everyone in the medical community loves to label him. As it's noticing, this has been a severe problem in modern American Health. In 2023, Bloomberg did a massive investigation into toxic levels of poison in your baby's formula and found that of the 33 leading brands of baby formula in our country, 32 of them had heavy metals poisoning your kid. This whole thing has me incredibly extra picky about all the things that I'm putting in my body, let alone my daughter's body, especially with supplements. And I am so over all of the junk options that are out there that pretend to care about your health and especially women's health, but are actually cutting corners behind the scenes at every possible opportunity. And that is why I am so, so grateful for our friends at We Heart Nutrition, a family owned company from Jacob and Kristen that uses research backed, highly bioavailable ingredients that have no artificial colors, no cheap fillers, no sketchy proprietary blends that you don't really know what's in it. And they third party test thing for toxic levels of heavy metals and product purity. When we made the switch to We Heart Nutrition, they sent us this big beautiful box and my husband took one look at this bottle and said, am I supposed to be taking a men's multivitamin every day? Yes honey, actually you are. We have tried a whole bunch of their products. My personal favorite being their wholesome postnatal supplement that I have loved taking ever since I have had my daughter. It keeps up my general feeling of wellness every day versus the general postnatals that are out there and has me still feeling pretty healthy. Like when I was taking a prenatal with my hair staying pret thick. It's not all falling out in chunks and so so much more. The absolute best part of their mission is that they actually donate 10 of all of their proceeds to pregnancy centers across the country to make sure that they are supporting women and families who are choosing life and two dates. They have already donated more than a million dollars to help accomplish that. From preconception and pregnancy to postpartum and even perimenopause. They have specific formulas that are guaranteed to help you through whatever phase of life that you're in right now. Plus essentials like magnesium glycinate to make sure that you're staying up to date with all of your sleep and de stressing hormone support with CL studied saffron, omega 3s, probiotics, immunity and gentle iron that's actually easy on your stomach. If you're not sure where to start, you can take their 32nd quiz to get personalized supplement recommendations for your current life stage. Go to weheartnutrition.com take the quiz and use code ISABELLE for 20 off your first order. Again, that's we heartnutrition.com code ISABEL this, by the way, isn't a new topic, but it is one of the new things that our government seems to be paying attention to at the federal level and the state level to more adequately protect our children and to prioritize public health in a much more meaningful way. So while RFK has been doing this on the federal side, you have people like the first lady of Florida, Casey DeSantis, taking on this issue at the state level too. I used to live in the state of Florida for a few years. I think the DeSantis administration has made it their business to take on a whole bunch of interesting cultural issues that most governors offices really aren't tackling. I'll be really curious to see if their potential abolition of property tax takes off nationwide because I'm dying here in the state of Virginia, where the air I breathe seems to be next to on the taxation chopping block. Don't worry, I'm just gonna collectively get grumpier every single day as we get closer to April 15, and I'll want to gouge my own eyes out with a fork. But that's a different conversation. The first lady of Florida, Casey DeSantis, recently joined Ali Beth Stuckey on her podcast to talk about their state's initiative to make sure that they are analyzing exactly what is wrong with baby formula on the market and then do something about it. Here is what she had to say.
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And the surgeon general and I got together, who's an excellent human being, and we sat down and we said, well, why don't we trust but verify kind of what's going on with our food supp. And that led into testing of baby formula first, because we thought it was important since these babies, that's all they're eating in the first years of life, that we should ensure the integrity of that. And then when we got the results back, we were very startled and obviously disquieted by the fact that there was 17 out of 24 that came back with problematic levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury. So if you go back to last year, the beginning of last year, Consumer Reports came out with their own study showing that there were problematic levels of these contaminants. And then as a result of that, on the federal side, Secretary Kennedy and rightfully President Trump decided to launch Operation Stork Speed, basically saying we need to go in and test a lot of this stuff. Well, here comes Florida, and now this is a year later, and there's still problematic contaminants in the baby formula. So we're like, what gives? Right?
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Yeah.
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Because it's particularly frustrating as a mother, when you go into a store and you're looking at the store aisles and you're looking at the products on the shelves and you're thinking that everything on there, you have an assumption that it is indeed safe. So you're making the best decision that you can for the best interests of your child. And when we find out that this stuff is in it, it's totally unacceptable. So the question is, is where do we ultimately go from here? Right. Like, there hasn't been a lot of change. So what we are doing in Florida, we're publishing all of these results so consumers can make informed decisions. You can go to exposing foodtoxins.com you can then, through the power of your pocketbook, buy the options that don't have these contaminants. And I think that's an important thing to say. Not all of them were bad, right? There were some. So don't tell me it can't be done better. Right? Don't tell me it's. Oh, it's the way that this stuff is sourced and therefore we can't do anything about it. That's false. There are some that are better than others. Parents have a right to know that. And we're doing another thing, too. Not only are we trying to put some sunshine on it by doing our independent testing in Florida, we're also asking and calling on the states to join in. So I had a great call earlier today with the first lady of North Dakota, who is all on board to be able to try to help from her state's capacity. I talked to the first lady of Oklahoma, talked to lieutenant governor of Indiana. We're reaching out to West Virginia and Arkansas and Georgia, and we're having really robust conversations about, okay, let's all be force multipliers to the federal government. Let's all find data and evidence and the truth about what's in the food supply and then give that to Kennedy and Makary and these guys. And so therefore they can come in and hold these companies accountable. And I think that's ultimately how we get to change, utilizing federalism of the state states, using these incubator, incubators of innovation to try to drive the accountability that ultimately can force, we hope, companies to make better decisions. Because that's what the Consumers want.
- [14:17]
C
So in the state of Florida, 17 of the brands that they tested had toxic levels of heavy metals that were destroying the health of innocent babies. And I love how the first lady of Florida puts this. As a mom, you walk into a store and if something is in the baby aisle, you generally think think it's safe to assume this product is safe for my baby to be using. I think this also kind of echoes the conversation we've been having over the past several weeks about Frida Baby, where if it's a product marketed to babies, you would kind of assume I don't have to go out of my way to follow this brand on Instagram to make sure that they're good people and they have the best interests and safety and protection of Innocence of My Baby in mind. But we do have to apparently, right? Because these are the same people that are sexualizing, marketing towards your baby. Now, I think parents feel this extra layer and extra responsibility certainly do. Myself, my daughter is eating real food and we're doing combo feeding of solid food and breastfeeding today. I can't just buy any old baby food at the grocery store and assume that it is safe and nutritious for my baby to eat. I have to do an extra layer of research these days, whether that be for snacks or purees or actual solid foods that are marketed to babies. Typically, I find myself having to pull out the Olive app on my phone every single time I'm going to the grocery store because I can't just reasonably expect that the thing on the shelf is all of a sudden safe for my baby to eat, even if it might be FDA approved. And that's exactly the perspective that they're taking with baby formula. For the record, in case there's any confusion, I know it sounds scary, heavy metals. Toxic levels of heavy metals poisoning your babies. But that's also like an ethereal 30,000 foot talking point. So what does that actually mean for something to be toxic for your baby? When it comes to heavy metals, here's what that means. Toxic levels of arsenic in food can cause developmental delays, lower iq, cognitive deficit, learning disabilities, attention and memory impairments, growth problems, breathing difficulties, weakened immune systems, increasing their risk of infection, and elevated long term cancer risk. Toxic levels of lead can cause permanent brain and nervous system damage, reduced iq, learning and behavioral problems, slowed growth and development, hearing and speech impairments, attention deficits, irritability. At higher levels. Toxic levels of lead can cause seizures, coma, or even death. Toxic levels of cadmium, another heavy metal, causes kidney damage and increased risk of kidney Disease throughout your lifetime, Weakening of your bones leading to fragility and more fractures. Impaired brain development with lower IQ and learning difficulties, behavioral challenges, growth impairments, Long term carcinogenic effects cause more cancer. Toxic levels of mercury cause severe damage to your developing brain and your nervous system. Cognitive impairments like reduced intelligence, memory loss, attention deficits, language delays, motor skill problems, vision and hearing impairments, increased risk of neurodevelopmental disorders and more. We are talking about frying your baby's brain before they ever even and develop out of infancy into toddlerhood because of the food that many parents rely on for their baby's nutrition every single day. I don't know about you. Not a trade deal I want to take as a parent. And I've never been more deeply grateful that God has given me the capacity to breastfeed my daughter exclusively. She has never had any formula throughout her entire life. Now almost 11 months into her life, thanks be to God. But for families who haven't had that option, formula is how they feed their baby. And having never thought about this myself, I've never actually taken a trip to the formul aisle at the grocery store until today. So I figured it'd be fun to go take one together. Let's go check it out. I am incredibly blessed. This is my very first time ever wandering through the formula aisle and the sheer amount of options is incredibly overwhelming. I have no idea what the difference between all of these brands are. It is mind blowing and honestly, it's so easy to think that something looks super healthy based on the packaging and how it's really green washed. But the ingredients were shocking to me. Let's just start with Enfamil. Like the general generic leading US brand infant formula, it is the number one recommended option by Pediatric nutritions. It claims to support your baby's brain development and immune support. And it makes 33 bottles for one of these things, which is $34, which is expensive, right? That's like a dollar per bottle. If you turn around the can, it talks about how it's supporting your baby's brain development, their immune system. It has different proteins and fat that help your baby grow. And then you flip the label to look at the ingredient list. Literally the third ingredient is vegetable oil. So palm oil, soy oil, sunflower oil. A lot of these have canola oil in them, just ridd oils that you are feeding your baby multiple times per day. I was curious to see what was really wrong with all of this, so I pulled out my trusty app olive. Literally my favorite thing at the grocery store right now. And it informed me that basically to meet FDA regulations in America, almost every infant formula has to contain seed oils to meet the minimum level of essential fats in order to stay FDA compliant. So even the cleanest and most organic brands of formula basically are required by law to be nutritionally complete to have seed oils in them, which is mind boggling. So then it was up to me to make sure I was scann all of the other brands, especially the ones that are marketing themselves as the super clean, healthy, organic, all natural whole milk options. And I was astounded. Okay, so if we go to Olive and let's look at just NARA Organics. This is very green washed, right? It says it's organic. It has a clean purity award. It's got whole milk as the base for this. It's got prebiotics. It's amazing. It was developed with pediatricians. This is one the of of the cleaner brands that's on the market here. And then we'll also scan this guy next, the infant formula from Bobby, which is European at inspired. I find that interesting at home in America. And then maybe we'll compare that with Kendam Mill, which is like the European brand. But start with NARA Organics. I'll pull out Olive here, which is generally how I tend to research whether or not something is healthy for my baby or not. Because they can tell me what red flags might exist in this product. If I scan this baby formula right here, you can see me pulling, pull up the scanner tool on Olive. Love this app, by the way. And then I go to this barcode and I scan this. 0 out of 100. Avoid at all costs. This thing has a 0 out of 100 score. Why? Because it uses a huge blend of seed oils like sunflower and rapeseed oil, which are not ideal for developing bodies, have been linked to inflammation, and it has a long, long list of additives and is a highly processed product. So this looks like clean, safe, it's organic, it's made from whole milk. It's like the safest thing you could possibly feed your baby. In actuality, it has a shocking number of additives. Look at this. Seed oils. There are five different seed oils present in this one product, which actually is required by law. I think that's a really shocking part about this that people don't realize. In the United States of America, it is required by law that every single infant formula in order to qualify as an infant formula, instead of just a toddler formula, it has, has to contain seed oils. In order to be nutritionally complete. Not great. So it has five different seed oils in this thing. And then they call this extremely processed. It's got a whole host of additives to all of this stuff. And then they'll suggest better alternatives to feed your baby instead. Try Bobby. I'm curious if they have this one in there. Not yet rated, but it does contain canola oil, so that's not great. All right, how about Similac? This is one of our other leading brands. Not rated yet yet contain seed oils because it has to. How about Pure Bl? This is their cleaner version of this. Look at how they green wash these things. It's insane. They have Similac, their normal name brand. Pure Bliss by Similac Irish Farms starts with milk from cows in Ireland. They like get you on this because they claim that it's like European inspired. Isn't that what that one said? European inspired Irish cows. I guarantee you this thing is still made in America. It is Ohio bio, so it still is not European formula. That's ridiculous. This is so fascinating. Not yet rated contains seed oils. So this app is still kind of a work in progress for formula because mostly what they're rating is actual baby food also. Shocking information, by the way. I'll show you a few examples of that when it comes to formula. Not good. Let's see how it analyzes actual European formula. Interestingly, because it's being sold in America, I think it still has to contain the seed oils in order to be nutritional. Originally complete. This one actually is made in Europe, though to my understanding, it's imported. Imported from Europe and distributed in the US in Boulder, Colorado. So let's see. I'm curious. Better. 35 out of 100. The reason that they're saying still avoid is because of the seed oils, but it's way less processed than most of the other US brands. So most parents that I'm learning are relying on formula for feeding their babies. For whatever reason, they can't supply enough through their breast milk, so they're supplementing or. Or they can't produce at all. And so they've been feeding their babies formula from day one. Most of them are using Kendamil. They're not using any American brands. They will rather spend more money for this type of stuff. And it is more money. It's 41 plus dollars for one of these cans. And you're going through multiple ones of these every month, which is crazy. But that's a much higher score than 0 out of 100 for the American brands. My goodness. Okay, so this is a toddler formula. It still does have seed oils in it, but I don't think it's legally required for a toddler formula to have to not yet rate. It still contains seed oils. It's a trap. Breastfeed your kids. Okay, I know this isn't the point of today's video, but just for kicks and giggles, if you use this app to scan other baby food, it's not great. Actually, I think we just talked about this the other day. May have mentioned it on the show that Olive did their own study on baby foods that they found 75% of baby food on the market is considered ultra processed. Not good. I'm learning to just feed my baby instead of like actual food instead of all this stuff. But I don't know. Let's look at Gerber puffs. Not great. Lots of additives. Extremely processed. All kinds of additives. Ew. No seed oils in this, but still all kinds of additives. That's gross out. Target's name brand.
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A
Good.
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And gather they have puffs. 58 out of 100 limit if you can. Serenity kids. Organic grain free. Ah, same score as targets. 58 out of 100. Once upon a farm. So wholesome, so clean for your children. 41 out of 100 limit high toxin content. What's the toxin content? Lead. Toxic levels of lead in this lovely green washed product to feed your baby. Do I dare scan Isla's favorite snacks? Am I gonna be disappointed? Isla loves these things. She eats them non stop. Now I'm afraid to scan it. What if it tells me it's poisoning her hundred out of 100 baby in little spoon we chewed. I decided to look this up after we got home because I have heard previously that it's basically required for seed oils to be present in infant formulas. And I know I told you that at the store. It's actually not a strict requirement, which makes this even more interesting to me. Most manufacturers, it turns out, are using seed oils when formulating infant formula because they are required to include certain fatty acids. And the fastest, cheapest, most efficient way to make that in formula is to drop seed oils in there. Canola oil, vegetable oil, palm oil, sunflower oil, etc. A lot of European companies will do the same thing, but not all of them. And it's much more common in other countries to not use seed oils to accomplish the same end result. To get more fatty acids in your baby's food mimicking a similar structure. That's not seed oils in breast milk. And for the record when everyone's talking about how evil and horrible seed oils are. Why entire restaurants and restaurant chains are ditching seed oils like Steak and Shake or certain chip companies. My favorite seed oil free chips being Masa and Vandy Crisp. Same company, Masa Chips, Vandy Crips, Vandy Crisps can't keep the hubby away from us. When people are seeing this massive societal push away from seed oils, it's because seed oils are known to cause massive amounts of inflammation in the body and can trigger all sorts of autoimmune responses infections in people. Like, it's not a good situation. Like for the record, canola oil, AKA vegetable oil. Not really about vegetables. It was originally developed as an industrial lubricant for steam engines for use on heavy machinery during the 20th century. Steam. So that's great. And we eat it in like most of our food products in America. Bad enough for the average adult body to process, but when that is the primary mechanism through which we are delivering fatty acids to babies in infant formula, you are setting them up for a life of rampant inflammation today before they even turn one year old. Again, not a great situation. As was mentioned, Secretary Kennedy said the findings of Operation Stork Speed's deep research into the problems with the baby formula industry are going to come out next month and you can bet your bottom dollar we are going to be covering that very, very extensive A mom who doesn't formula feed her baby? She's still breastfeeding her baby. I'm really curious to know what experience you guys may have had throughout your process feeding your babies. If you have used formula, have you run into problems or even mass recalls similar to the by heart nutrition recall and botulism toxicity of the food that your babies are eating? Are you frustrated with the lack of seed oil free or without corn syrup options that are not out there on the market today? Like why we need more genuinely organic healthy formula options. How do you feel about poison from from heavy metals, toxic levels of heavy metals being ingested by your babies every single day? And what do you think our government should do about it? We're formulating our own opinions as we learn more about the topic, but dying to know what you guys think. Let us know in the comments.