The Mercola website has announced that his team is working to produce “the finest infant formula on the market.“
An excerpt from Dr. Mercola’s article announcing this development states:
I must admit, that when I first got wind of this news, I was puzzled.  As a Mom who breastfed her first two children for 2 years each and her youngest child for 3 1/2 years, I am definitely in full support of the “breast is best” mentality.
However, I have a very strong practical streak, which is why I also very much support a safe, healthy homemade milk based or hypoallergenic nondairy baby formula when a Mom adopts or finds herself unable to breastfeed for health reasons.
It is a very imperfect world, after all, and the best situation of a well nourished Mom who is willing and able to breastfeed is not always possible in the final analysis.
Let’s take this practical line of thought a step further. Â Suppose a nonbreastfeeding Mom is simply unwilling to take the time and effort to source the quality ingredients required to make the homemade baby formula and insists on buying commercial formula of some kind.
In that case, there is currently no brand of commercial baby formula on the market which qualifies as acceptable in the remotest sense of the word. Even Earth’s Best organic formula is completely unacceptable due to high temperature processing, use of rancid vegetable oils, nonfat milk powder and packaging in BPA laced cans.
With that in mind, Mercola’s commercial baby formula has the potential to fill a real void in the baby formula market if and only if he is able to produce a commercially available infant formula that includes:
- Low temperature dried, whole milk powder
- Coconut oil
- Non rancid, expeller pressed sunflower oil
- Extra virgin olive oil
- Lactose
- Non-industrialized cod liver oil or other natural source of vitamins A/D/K2
- Bifidobacterium Infantis (probiotic)
- Whole foods source of vitamin C such as acerola powder
- Whole food source of B vitamins such as low temp dried nutritional yeast
- Low temp dried beef gelatin
- Non BPA packaging
While such a formula would never come close to the perfection of breastmilk from a well nourished Mother or even the homemade dairy infant formula using quality, grassfed raw milk, such a commercial formula would certainly be a huge step forward in improving the disastrous quality of infant formulas on the market today. Goat milk formula or even camel milk formula is an option as well.
So, although I am skeptical, I am trying to think positively about this upcoming product release from Dr. Mercola especially since the ingredient list and processing methods have yet to be disclosed.
How do you feel about Dr. Mercola’s announcement?  Do you feel that it could be an improvement over what is available commercially today or is this a step backward in the Real Food movement’s press for more Moms to be well nourished and to choose breastfeeding or, at the very least, the homemade baby formula?
Let’s wait and see what he comes up with!
Sarah, The Healthy Home Economist
Sarah, what is the next best option for milk for baby if they cannot be breastfed?
Secondly, has Dr. Mercola developed his infant formula yet?
This is the best alternative to breastmilk. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/video-homemade-milk-based-baby-formula/
I would not recommend breastmilk banks because the milk is pasteurized, which destroys much of the benefit.
Dr. Mercola has not released his infant formula yet to my knowledge.
Sarah, have you heard that The Honest Company (Jessica Alba’s brain child) has come out with an organic baby formula? I was just wondering your thoughts on it…
No powdered baby formula is good. It would be denatured and not a good choice if you want baby to grow up allergy free.
does anyone have an update on this, is he still going to produce it?
Um I know this is an older posts and I remember well the drama this situation caused, but you are aware that finding informal mother-to-mother donation of FRESH breastmilk is now much much more common thanks to the likes of Eats on Feets http://www.eatsonfeets.org/ and Human Milk For Human Babies as well as Milk Share (Love you Emma!) Since it is donation and almost always from a mother you not only can meet but screen personally for health/disease/diet/lifestyle/etc., this is not only a superior choice over any formula but much cheaper- aka FREE (well it’s expected you provide storage bags but those come back to you lol)!
It is so frustrating to read negative posts that insist everyone can breastfeed, even adoptive mothers. I have a 3 week old baby and I successfully breastfed my other 3 kids. There is nothing I would like more. It was a traumatic birth, I have hormone issues, and only can pump 1 oz of my milk at a time. And baby will not breastfeed. So of course I have to supplement. And there are plenty of other moms like me, heartbroken that we can’t get it right. It does not always work, and I wish other moms would be more supportive.
Breast milk from banks is pasteurized so basically ruined. And you haven idea how much fast food, fake colors, bad meats, corn Syrup, or msg the mom has eaten. It’s also very expensive and you have no co trol over the chain of custody or food safety issues.
I would buy mercolas formula if it were for sale. And I am gathering the ingredients for the homemade formula. Thank goodness that there are people out there trying to help us feed our babies well.
I’m prettymuch in the same boat as you, I LOVE nursing babies but I have tons of issues with it, and have had to use formula this time since week two (fortunately I got to keep nursing part time alright). We use Baby’s Only, the current best on the market, but I would gladly switch to whatever I can that is the best to offer for my child. During a supplemental time with my 3rd child I made formula, but since that hasn’t been a good option for us this year, I am thankful for people developing better formulas.
Sarah, I noticed several negative comments on this post. It is so clear to me that you are very understanding toward those who must substitute for breast milk. You clearly are hoping that the formula DOES fulfill the need it is promising. It seems a sensitive topic can stir up emotions. Thanks for looking objectively at the products offered even by our “heroes”.
I’m facing a difficult question, one of my clients in California is currently making their own formula using goat’s milk for their 6 months old baby. However, due to the radiation they want to know if they should continue feeding the homemade formula or introduce store bought. I can only say what I would do in my situation and I not tell them what to do…I raised babies in Europe and I am not familiar with brands here, so I wonder if they decide to buy formula, which one is the least evil so to speak?
I think it’s fine that Mercola makes “the best formula on the market”. And it’s true “breast is best” also. However, not every mother can breastfeed (or breastfeed exclusively), so it’s nice to have something else to fall back on!
It would be ideal if the mother could fall back on a raw milk formula, like the one that Weston Price suggests, however, raw milk isn’t always available everywhere in the world, making the formula isn’t always convenient to travel with, and sometimes baby pops out before we’re able to organize ourselves to make it.
So having said that, I think it’s okay that Mercola is making this product, as long as he promotes breastfeeding and homemade formulas as the optimal solutions. His product would be a good backup plan. So in other words, there’s no reason to be mad or disappointed.