nutrition

Ask An Organic Mom

Earth's Best Formula Secretly Reformulated!? Inquiring Moms Want to Know

August 11, 2008 at 9:07AM By Alexandra Zissu | comment

Baby bottle with formula I love the Internet. It really makes this whole organic mom thing a lot easier. We get a lot of questions through this blog that are more tips than questions, queries that give us greater understanding of what other trying-to-be organic moms are coming up against. Some of this information from the front lines is news to us. One such email came in recently. I have edited lightly:

Hi,

I am wondering if you are aware of a reformulation of Earth's Best Dairy Formula. I just bought three of the 25 oz cans (I used to buy the 13 oz) and I noticed the first ingredients listed are no longer Organic Lactose, Organic Nonfat Milk. The ingredients are as follows: Organic Reduced Minerals Whey, Organic Vegetable Oils (palm or palm olein, high oleic (safflower or sunflower), coconut, soy,) Organic Nonfat Milk, Organic Lactose, etc. Does this mean that the formula is now predominately whey and oils rather than milk? I am a bit disturbed by the reformulation without any noticeable change in packaging. Could this be some attempt for Hain Celestial to save money while producing an inferior product? I am a little concerned about the quality of this formula now.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Thanks,
Stephani E. in the San Francisco Bay Area

I suggested Stephani contact them herself, and said that I'd also get in touch with them and see what I could find out. In the meantime, regarding the nutrition concern, I said she could look into Baby's Only, which is marketed as a toddler formula (mainly because the company is trying to encourage breastfeeding for younger tots) but contains what any formula should contain. Showing an ingredient list to your pediatrician before offering a formula to your child is always a good idea.

Before I had a chance to call Earth's Best, Stephani had already written me again. She had spoken to a customer service rep who said she didn't know of any reformulation. When Stephani read her the label ingredients, the rep confirmed that there was a change made in June. Odd. ...

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tags: food, parenting, nutrition, business, earth's best, breastfeeding, Hain, Organic formula, reformulated, DHA/ARA, FDA regulations

Organic Prenatal Nutrition, With or Without Supplements

July 14, 2008 at 6:24AM By Lexy Zissu | comment

I just … began my search for the healthier prenatal choice. I've read up a lot on the perfect prenatal by new chapter organics. Do you have any opinions on this? I noticed it contains lavender, which I've read can cause some female hormones to appear in male babies? Any other opinions on products for me?   

Thanks, Staci

A perfect prenatal is a tall order! Overall -- organic or not -- you want to make sure you’re getting the maximum daily recommended dose of folic acid (important for helping prevent neural tube defects and spina bifida). Some “natural” (that’s in quotes because the claim natural is unregulated) brands also contain additional herbs and nutrients considered beneficial for pregnancy. These claims aren't exactly regulated either, so it's a good idea to go over the ingredient list of any vitamin you're taking with your OB/GYN or midwife.

Here’s a list from The Complete Organic Pregnancy of the vitamins and minerals your pre-natal should contain and the appropriate levels for an expecting mother:

Vitamins spilling out of a bottle

4,000 and 5,000 IU (international units) of vitamin A
800 and 1,000 mcg (1 mg) of folic acid
400 IU of vitamin D
200 to 300 mg of calcium
70 mg of vitamin C
1.5 mg of thiamine
1.6 mg of riboflavin 
2.6 mg of pyridoxine
17 mg of niacinamide
2.2 mcg of vitamin B-12
10 mg of vitamin E
15 mg of zinc
30 mg of iron

Unfortunately I found (and many, many other moms have found) most of them made me nauseated when I took them, which was tough at a time when I was already nauseated. I wound up trying many different kinds, and also only took them right before bed so I was either less nauseated or I slept through it.

The main difference between an organic and a conventional vitamin is ...

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tags: food, organic, nutrition, lavender, hormones, baby, supplements, prenatal

Finding Organic, Whole Wheat Pastas

March 31, 2008 at 11:58AM By Deirdre Dolan | comment

I think bad habits often begin as a way to avoid misery, so as relieved as I was to see her brighten up, I sensed a looming battle with pasta. There’s nothing wrong with pasta, but it’s refined and processed and not packed with nutrition. I investigated what’s out there in organic and whole wheat, and found there a number of alternatives that stick to her gut the way she clearly craves.

They include ...

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tags: pasta, food, parenting, organic, nutrition, whole wheat, baby

Men Prefer Meat, Women Love Lettuce

January 16, 2008 at 8:01AM By Deirdre Dolan | comment

Every so often my husband and I play this game where we choose which of two foods we’d rather live without – ice cream or potatoes, bread or butter, onions or carrots, etc. The most recent debate was melted cheese or lettuce, and at a friend’s kind of boring dinner party over the holidays he put it to the group. Not exactly the Algonquin round table, but it filled a silence and even prompted one guy who hadn’t said a word all night to tell us: "Every meal I eat has melted cheese in it."

But I noticed something interesting about everyone else’s response and that was that they were divided almost entirely according to gender – the men would give up lettuce, the women cheese. ...

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