Unfinished Dad

When Will Mr. E. coli Leave Us Alone

I was fine when I had to stop eating those orange crackers with the quasi-peanut butter in the middle.  And I really never ate much lettuce or tomatoes.  But one day I'm going to want to impart the joy of raw cookie dough in a store bought plastic sleeve to my kids.  I hope to forget this article and this blog post by then.

As a side note, if you are ever in a fix for a way to disseminate food product recall information, the FDA makes goofy widgets for your blog.  Just don't ask them to stop the food-borne illnesses from erupting in the first place.

FDA Product Recall List

Mac and Cheese With Cauliflower

Do your kids like Mac and Cheese?  Do you like them to eat vegetables without them knowing it?  Make this.  

Just do me a favor, when you get to the store, pretend they don't have that reduced fat stuff.  You can say it's because your growing little ones need the fat to grow.

Nutramigen Customer Letter

Here is the letter I sent to Mead Johnson today.  I held off on the sarcasm, because I want them to take my complaint seriously, and I want them to send me some free swag...a Nutramigen onesie maybe.

To Whom It May Concern:

My daughter, Matilda, has used Enfamil Nutramigen since August 15^th 2008.  I know the exact date, because the day before, she was in the hospital for severe dehydration due to vomiting.  My wife had recently discontinued breastfeeding and we started Matilda on Enfamil Lipil, as we did with our first daughter, Annabelle.

For that first 48 hours of bottle feeding, we had no idea why Matilda rejected everything she ate.  My wife blamed herself for not breastfeeding, and our families told us it must be a stomach bug.  By the time we went to the hospital, Matilda was vomiting nothing but bile and had lost a fair amount of weight. 

Once pyloric stenosis was ruled out by the doctors, they diagnosed a milk allergy.  Matilda proved to be severely allergic to casein, a fact later confirmed through blood tests.  The emergency room doctor recommended we use either Nutramigen or Similac Alimentum.  We chose Nutramigen, and as soon as we switched Matilda began eating and regained the weight she lost.

We are 10 months removed from that initial scare, and Matilda is doing great.  She has no other diagnosed food allergies, and now eats numerous solid foods.  The extra cost of Nutramigen, while significant, is outweighed by the memory of seeing Matilda in the hospital.

Imagine then, my disappointment when I opened a can of Nutramigen this week and saw the larger scoop size.  It didn’t take much investigation to realize that your new formulation, which includes Enflora, manages to exclude one major thing…3.4 ounces of powder.  The same size can now yields 24% less formula.  This is an immediate cost increase of $60 a month for our family.  We already spend over $2500 a year to feed Matilda.  This change makes us consider switching brands, but the fear of potential side effects makes that difficult.  Matilda may have grown out of her milk allergy; many children do by this age.

I am writing to see if you would recommend that we give another formula—or whole milk—a whirl?  Would you with your child?

From this inquiry I hope to accomplish two things: To receive from your company a definitive explanation as to why the new formulation needs to contain less powder per can, and to let you know that, like me, many of your loyal customers who opened their new lightweight cans of Nutramigen this week must be considering a switch as well.

Sincerely,

Joseph Poulas

Take That Enfamil!

Nutramigen Pyramid!, originally uploaded by unfinished dad.

I am still debating what to do about the great Nutramigen scam of 2009. In the meantime I took the financial matter into my own hands and raided all of the local Giants for their remaining stock of Nutramigen 1.0. I bought 14 cans, which should be enough to take Matilda through the next two months and her first birthday. By then she will be off formula and our family will buy its first goat. So the score after one inning in this epic contest?

Unfinished Dad: 1
Nutramigen: 0
Unfinished Dad's Wallet: -$377.86

Editor's Note: Notice that there are 15 cans in the stack.  The 15th, and evil looking can, is a rogue Nutramigen 2.0 that climbed to the top at the last minute.

Nutramigen

I'm not one to take up causes.  In fact, you could say that the only cause I ever take up is to deride those that take up causes.  It was hard to get me riled up about Obama v. McCain, or even Lauren v. Heidi.  I'm not the parent to get obsessed with the best schools or the newest parenting methods.  Today, this ends.

Matilda is allergic to the protein in cow's milk.  This protein is called casein and avoiding it costs money.   When Annie was still drinking formula we used the generic Target version of Enfamil.  It cost $13 for a 26 ounce can.  The formula that does not contain casein—notice I use the singular here—is called Nutramigen.  It is also an Enfamil product, but because it is hypoallergenic, it is so tightly regulated that the knockoff companies can't produce a generic version.  We currently pay $27 for a 16 ounce can.  I could only muster a C in a sad mandatory class called "Math Thinking" at Bloomsburg University, but I'm pretty sure that this works out to almost four times the cost.

We go through two cans a week.  That works out to $240 a month just to feed a 10 month old.  You can imagine how annoyed I am every Monday when my grocery receipt has that 60 bucks tacked on at the end.

I needed to buy my Nutramigen a day early this week—I must have spilled a scoop somewhere—and when I got it home I noticed that the scoop was about one third larger.  I was worried that I would give Matilda the wrong amount so I gave the directions a quick once over.  Nothing seemed amiss.  Then when I added the formula to the water it looked different, creamier.  It dawned on me that the powder was less dense.

Upon a full inspection of the can, I discovered that the same size now weighs 3.4 ounces less.  I am being robbed by Enfamil and their parent company Mead Johnson.  The label clearly states that the old can yielded 113 fluid ounces of formula.  The new one?  87 ounces.  That's 24% less formula! 

Cause adopted.

Another quick nod to "Math Thinking" and I work out that this means my monthly formula tab has gone from $240 to $297.  Yes America, my family now pays $3500 a year on formula.

So what is a parent to do?  I could boycott Nutramigen, but that means a sick daughter or the purchase of a goat.  I could try soy milk, but something about those soy milk people just screams cause adopter.  The first thing I am going to do is write a really long, snarky letter to Mead Johnson.  This will make me feel better and provide some entertainment for you.

So if anyone out there has some experience with casein allergies or in battling huge corporations, drop me a line.  I will, of course, keep you posted on the growth of my very first cause.  Hopefully you won't feel any differently about me when all is said and done.