How Laura Modi Is Rewriting Baby Formula

Mark Hyman, MD

Dr. Mark Hyman is leading a health revolution—one focused on using food as medicine to support longevity, energy, mental clarity, happiness, and so much more. Mark Hyman, MD is a practicing family physician and an internationally recognized leader, speaker, educator, and advocate in the field of Functional Medicine. He is the founder and director of The UltraWellness Center, Founder and Senior Advisor for the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine, a fifteen-time New York Times best-selling author, and Board President for Clinical Affairs for The Institute for Functional Medicine. He is the founder and chairman of the Food Fix Campaign, dedicated to transforming our food and agriculture system through policy.

He is a co-founder and the Chief Medical Officer of Function Health. He is the host of one of the leading health podcasts, The Dr. Hyman Show with 150+ million downloads. Dr. Hyman is a regular medical contributor to several television shows and networks, including CBS This Morning, Today, Good Morning America, The View, Fox, and CNN.

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Full Transcript

Automatically generated. Please forgive any typos or errors in the following transcript. It was generated by a third party and has not been subsequently reviewed by our team.

Laura Modi
I went into motherhood grounded in all of these beliefs and expectations that my body would be able to exclusively breastfeed my babies. Five days in to having my first kid, I got mastitis, And it got to the place where I wasn't able to get enough milk out to feed my child. And the alternative for me to feed my child was going to a pharmacy to buy my baby's food. And I was riddled with guilt. Formula is food.

Why are we also going to a pharmacy, which is typically a place that you would go purchase drugs for a medical need? Your ability to not be able to breastfeed shouldn't be seen as a medical problem. There's been so much shame and stigma tied to how you feed your child that we have to develop a new relationship with it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Laura Mody is the co founder and the CEO of Bobby, the first woman led organic infant formula company driving policy and cultural change in early nutrition. Now before founding Bobbi, she spent six years at Airbnb where she led global host experience and trust initiatives. In 2025, she was named one of Time Magazine's Women of the Year for her leadership in reshaping how America feeds its babies.

Laura Modi
I started looking at the nutritional standards that the FDA had set and was questioning why hadn't they really evolved over the last thirty years. Essentially, the same formula that I probably was consuming as a child was the same formula that existed on shelf for our kids, but every other food source has seen some change with the latest science. Fifty percent of babies born in the country rely on WIC. The way it's set up for infant formula is that the two major companies will bid for the winning per state, and they will be the formula of choice in that state for any WIC participants. So what that does is limits choice.

I mean, frankly, think it's it's a sign that inequality starts day one.

Dr. Mark Hyman
How do you give advice to mothers who are trying to figure out how to navigate this space? How do they make the right choice for themselves and for their baby?

Laura Modi
Your best is best is one of the most important things to consume.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Laura, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you.

Laura Modi
Thank you for having me. Delighted to be here.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Now we're talking about a topic today that impacts millions of people that, has been fraught for many reasons and problematic, which is how do you feed your baby? Breast milk formula, good, bad. How do we think about it? And what are the problems with our current situation around formula, particularly in America? As a physician and I I delivered 500 babies in my day.

Laura Modi
Wow.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And I loved OB and loved and I was a family doctor, so I took care of the mother and the baby. So the whole way through. And I remember being in the hospital in the especially where I was training. And I would deliver babies, and I I would I would have to put an order in the chart to not feed the baby formula unless it was under a doctor's board. Mark.

And the reason I did that was because I wanted the the nurses to actually support and encourage mothers to breastfeed.

Laura Modi
Of course.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And what they would what I was seeing happening was that they would discourage the mothers from breastfeeding. Yes. And and I that I wasn't happy with. And formula feeding is okay, but I'm just saying, like, that should be the go to for most where we can start. At least a try.

Right? And so I I think, you know, I think the the question was always is like, what formula should it could have? And then I always tell these kids with all these health issues from formulas and gut issues and allergies and eczema, and, you know, the quality was terrible, and I look read the label, and it was like sugar and refined oils. I'm like, what is this? I wouldn't feed this to my dog.

You know? Like Yeah. And and so your story is quite amazing because you, you know, you were a big executive and doing cool stuff and in business, and you worked Google and Airbnb, and, you know, you had a big career, and then you kinda took a left turn.

Laura Modi
Pretty big left turn.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So tell us the story of, like, how this all came into your ecosystem because Google and Airbnb don't seem to have much to do with formula and babies.

Laura Modi
Nothing at all. Nothing at all. It was it was a hard pivot. I joke that, you know, I didn't grow up dreaming of starting a powdered milk business. It was never part of the agenda.

I I went into motherhood, you know, grounded in all of these beliefs and expectations that my body would be able to exclusively breastfeed my babies. I grew up in the West Of Ireland.

Dr. Mark Hyman
The eldest that funny accent?

Laura Modi
Yes. It's it's I'm I'm in the in between phases. I was the eldest of five. My my grandmother had 13 children. She breastfed all of them.

A lot of kids, but there's something about comparing yourself in many ways to your own lineage and your community and how you've grown up. And I just saw that it was a natural thing to do. It was also something that I think was just built into the expectations of becoming a mother in my family. So here we are, grew up in the West Of Ireland, certain expectations, and then I moved out to The US, and I had American babies. Five days in to having my eldest, my first kid, I got mastitis, which is a common infection.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That just so people know what that is?

Laura Modi
Yeah. It's essentially an infection of the the milk glands, where your nipples can blister, they can bleed, and you can get to a place where you can't produce enough milk. Now if treated well and if given enough support, you can treat it so that your milk does come back and that you can continue to breastfeed your child. Stubborn Irish me, I just powered through. And I also reflect back.

I actually think about this all the time. I didn't really have a support system to turn to. It wasn't like there was an easy access to calling up lactation consultants. And to be brutally honest, I think I probably left it too late.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, you just kinda powered through your

Laura Modi
work and then you and and it got to the place where I wasn't able to get enough milk out to feed my child. And then you're left with that.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh, then you feel terrible.

Laura Modi
Terrible. I mean, the responsibility you have to feed your child is the normal responsibility. Exactly. I go down to the local pharmacy, and I remember standing. It's so vivid, standing in that middle aisle.

And I look on one side, and you see cat food, and then you see diapers. And now you're choosing what is essentially meant to be a food to feed your baby.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Oh,

Laura Modi
and and the worst part about it is I had to ring, you know, the shame bell? The the bell that says, can you come unlock this case? Because I need to get food because my body's unable to do this.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And why why do they have a lock like that? Because people steal the formula?

Laura Modi
It's usually related to people stealing anything expensive. But, you know, if you actually unpack that a little bit, why are we also going to a pharmacy, which is typically a place that you would go purchase drugs for a medical need. Your ability to not be able to breastfeed shouldn't be seen as a medical problem. And, unfortunately, the alternative for me to feed my child was going to a pharmacy to buy my baby's food. And that just left me with, like I was riddled with guilt.

Everything leading up to that point, I was able to accomplish in my life. I actually remember hoping that they would give me a bag that wasn't see through so that when I walked out with that formula, I wasn't going to be judged. Wow. Such shame.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And so that inspired you to start this company, Bobby, which is trying to reinvent infant formula. In some ways, like, look at what Europe's doing and kinda come up with a hybrid that creates a better formula. And it's something for me as a physician when I was trying to find formulas to support the breastfeeding mothers that I was taking care of. It was a struggle because I this is crap, and this is crap, and this is crap. And and, you know, what what we have now in America is a crisis of obesity.

You know, twenty percent of kids are obese, forty percent are overweight. Infants, one in ten or even more of infants are overweight or obese. Wow. And this is not because they're eating too much and exercising less. Right?

It's not their fault. And they're not because they're eating Twinkies. Something's going on. And we talked about it earlier before the podcast, but there was a study that came out recently that identified just how much sugar an average baby was getting in their infant formula, and it's about a can of Coke a day. Yes.

So can you talk about the implications of this for our infant population, and then the downstream long term consequences for children and then adults who are programmed in very young ages to be overweight or obese?

Laura Modi
Let me first start with the makeup of breast milk. So breast milk is actually made up majority of sugar. It is you know, most of what you will get in breast milk is sugar, but it's natural milk sugar. Lactose. Exactly.

And on a spectrum of all the different types of sugar, the other end, what you commonly see or have commonly seen in formula is corn syrup. They're two dope totally different sugars. So while they provide the same carb output, the input is radically different.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Carbs on a carb on a carb.

Laura Modi
There you go. I learned that from you. Mhmm. We gotta start looking at what is the best alternative to the processed ingredients that have typically been used. And what you're seeing is a rise of formula companies, and I think smaller companies like Bobby that are coming in are really pushing the mark and saying, we should be using natural milk sugar, which is why we only use a 100% lactose.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Sort of everybody was having a a thought about, you know, the other end of the age spectrum, which is the elderly. And Oh. What often they get is, like, Ensure and Boost. And these things are just filled with corn sugar and corn syrup solids and refined oils and all kinds of horrible ingredients. And it's like you were kind of poisoning

Laura Modi
Both ends?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Both ends of the spectrum. What I wanted to sort of help you help you help us understand is, you know, what is the composition of breast milk, what are the important things that that we know are important for babies' growth and development? What actually is in most formulas now that and what's missing? Yeah. And then what Bobby does, which is your company, to help actually fill that gap.

Yeah. And even also you kinda add to it a little bit by adding you're providing baby supplements like probiotics and Yeah. Vitamin D.

Laura Modi
Yeah. DHA. Yeah. DHA, which

Dr. Mark Hyman
is basically the main fat in breast milk. I used to joke all the time. Said, you know, the best source of of omega three fats is wild fish and breast milk, although it's hard to get the breast milk. You know?

Laura Modi
And every formula should have DHA.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Because it's important for brain development.

Laura Modi
Yes. One of the most important things. So okay. Back up for a second. Breast milk is made up of carbs, proteins, and fats, and infant formula needs to mimic that.

But like I said, how you decide to make up those carbs, proteins, and fats can look very different. Most formulas will turn to cow's milk, and then you need to manipulate that cow's milk to mimic that of breast milk to make it easy to digest to ensure that the baby's getting the full composition. So let's use protein. It is a mix of whey to casein protein. But what's interesting is the mix that you get in breast milk, the combination of whey to casein, is different to that of cow's milk.

So most formulas have to add in more whey to make it easier to digest.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mhmm. And case seems to be more inflammatory and also more gut issues and more if you know, of a cause of things like eczema and allergies and things like that. Yeah.

Laura Modi
What is not actually printed on most infant formula labels is what that ratio split is. And to sort of guess the benefits of making it easier to digest for a baby, you wanna see that the weight to casein ratio matches that of breast milk. That is more seventy thirty, which is the opposite to what you see in typical cow's milk. And then we talked about sugars, and then there's also fats. So I do wanna underscore infant formula does have to mirror that of breast milk for these major macros.

And but it all comes down to the ingredients. Where are those ingredients coming from? How are they processed? How are they farmed? Are they organic?

All of these things come

Dr. Mark Hyman
grass fed milk. Right? Grass

Laura Modi
milk from small batch American farms. We use expeller pressed oils for our fat blends.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Not the ones that are used solvents and heat and ane and deodorizers and decolorants and

Laura Modi
Yes. Yes. And all of the things that ultimately are the the negative consequences for using the wrong ingredients. So it's more than it's more than the ingredient itself. It's where is it farmed and how is it processed.

And most companies are not putting that directly on a label and talking about it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I think what you what you're saying is so important. I I wanna underscore it because people think, oh, protein, fat, carbs. And if anybody's been listening to me for the last thirty years, you're gonna know what I'm gonna say next, which is that food is medicine. And that not all protein, not all carbs, and not all fats are the same. And they have profoundly different biological effects.

So you can have broccoli, which is a carbohydrate, very different than a can of Coke. Correct. Same carbs. Correct. Calories.

If you if you have a big gulp that has huge amounts of sugar, and in order to get the same amount of, you know, carbohydrate as you get in a big gulp, you have to have 35 cups of broccoli. And so you're never gonna you're never gonna eat that, first of all. Second of all, you can have the big gulp and get all the effect. And the and the sugar is high fructose corn syrup in one, and it's, you know, complex, you know, bonds of of glucose in carbohydrates plus fiber plus other stuff. So fibers are carbohydrates.

So, you know, the effects on metabolically on your immune system, on your gut microbiome, they're just profoundly different. So you you you can't just say, well, it's got the right exactly matching protein, exactly matching fat, exactly matching carb as breast milk, so it's okay. No. It's not. It depends on where they come from.

So can you talk about, with that perspective, that the ingredients matter so much, and the quality matters, and the form matters, and the the source matters? What is different about what you created that that actually creates a better and healthier formula?

Laura Modi
Well, this sort of goes back to to my Irish accent, which is I I started looking at the nutritional standards that the FDA had set and was questioning why haven't they really evolved over the last thirty years. Essentially, same formula that I probably was consuming as a child was the same formula that existed on shelf for our kids, but every other food source has seen some change with the latest science. So comparing that to, let's say, the European nutritional standards where they had evolved every four to five years. And those nutritional standards were coming out and saying, you know what? Before, we didn't think DHA is needed, but now the latest science is is saying that it's really important for cognitive development.

And not just a small amount, but a really, really healthy amount that no other US formula had met.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. And it's real. 60% of your brain is DHA, is this omega three fatty acid. 60% of the brain fat is this fat.

Laura Modi
And it's so formative in those first thousand days. So here we have an entire continent who's come out and said, we believe that DHA is needed for babies' cognitive development. But over in The US, we still didn't have a standard that said formula companies are required to put it in.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So Which made me crazy.

Laura Modi
Which totally and, I mean, that's that's another conversation. We can get there, and we should be the gold standard for being able to say what infant formula looks like. But in my in in from my perspective, I'm looking at global standards, not just the EU, but all over the world and saying, what are the world's best standards? And then why can't we also produce that here in The US? Because we should be able to source from local small batch American farms.

We should be able to produce it here domestically, but also look to the global nutritional standards to what's best. And, essentially, that's what I did with Bobby.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So so talk to us about the the way in which the protein is different, the fat's different, and the carbohydrates. You touched on that with lactose. And then I wanna kinda double click on a few of those areas because I think it's important that people understand that that, you know, right now because of the kind of sugars, for example, or maybe even the oils in infant formula is causing an obesity crisis and an overweight crisis in infants.

Laura Modi
In infants.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And in infants. I mean I mean, think about it. Like, one in ten people in America weren't overweight when I was born. Now it's one in ten babies are overweight.

Laura Modi
My god. And look. On the others the other side of this, hunger is still an issue too. I mean, we're we're still living in a place where hunger and obesity happen to be brought up in the same sentence. So I'm still living in a world post the infant formula shortage of 2022 where infant formula wasn't even being able to get found on shelf.

Yeah. Let alone, you know, talking about the quality of it. Bottom of Maslow's hierarchy is is it even available? And and the fact that we're living in a nation where the availability of an essential goods is still very hard to get on shelf and fully stocked.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Same thing I have with meat, and and because we have such centralized food supply system and a few companies controlling everything

Laura Modi
Yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
That it's a monopolized system. So if it goes down, it's the whole thing's down.

Laura Modi
I mean, you remembered in 2022, it was a wake up call to to America. We got to a place where one infant formula company that was feeding close to 50% of the population, they had to close their doors because of a contamination. What that did was show us we're not resilient enough. As a nation, we've allowed two companies essentially to create this dependency that we've now had on them to feed our babies.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And Johnson and Johnson?

Laura Modi
And and Mead. And look. They have done an incredible job evolving the science and ensuring that infant formula really is meeting the standards that we need, keeping babies fed. But we've gotten to a place where that dependency on two companies to feed our nation is is there's consequences to that, and we saw that in 2022. Unfortunately, what ended up happening during that moment was we turned to another nation to say, because we can't keep shelves stocked, we want other countries to come in and feed our babies.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And they did.

Laura Modi
And they did. But here we are three years later, and we are still relying on imports, which is is not how we're going to build a sustainable resilient America. We need to be able to invest in our next generation.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So going back to the question of, like, the food is medicine in the formula. So we talked about the importance of DHA and the fats. There are other fats too. Know, I often joke when I give lectures that, you know, breast milk is is is a huge amount of saturated fat. It is.

About 25% of the calories are are saturated fat. We have such a warped view of saturated fat, but it's an important fat. It's a critical fat for these babies. There's certainly some in bodies, but it's it's still hard to get that right. So can you talk about, you know, how you sort of worked around that with the fat piece?

Laura Modi
Every infant formula company is in the same position, You need to make up the majority of your calories have to come from fat. And remember, a baby a baby is growing at 10% every week, and then it continues to go like, to to a point where not providing the needed calories to that child is also making them deficient of their ability to develop. So a lot of your fat can come directly from the milk source, but you also need to be able to add in alternative oils. And for every infant formula globally, that's vegetable oils today because it makes up the matching fat blend to that that you find in breast milk.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And and you've also got coconut oil, which is

Laura Modi
You got coconut oil, purposefully left out palm oil, which is a very commonly used oil. Actually, one of the leading causes to constipation as well. So, yeah, it's a mix of coconut oil, sunflower, safflower. And, you know, over time, I really do hope, and I think The US can be a leading example of this. How are we leaning into more natural milk fats, And then alternative oils like olive oil.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And so you're you kind of are sort of trying to thread the needle with the fats. Have to. But you're doing things that are are different even if using a similar name of the oil, let's say canola oil. But you you aren't using ones that are industry produced with tons of glyphosate and which is a herbicide that destroys the microbiome and has carcinogenic effects and epigenetic generational effects and just it's a problem.

Laura Modi
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You're you're using organic or expeller plus or cold press or things that aren't using a lot of the same industrial processing of the oil. So the oil in themselves are not the problem. It's often how we're processed.

Laura Modi
That is a really, really important point to underscore. There is such a polarized relationship when people hear vegetable oils or seed oils, and it's not about the the ingredient itself. It truly is. How is it processed? How is it manufactured?

So we use a supplier who only use cold press, expeller pressed oils. That means they're not using hexane, and it doesn't have the same negative impact and inflammation that most seed oils would have. And, actually, it's usually, it's those kind of oils that are used in mass processed foods.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. And and you you also you know, don't put in all the other weird stuff that that they that they put in formula. Like, it's it's and I think you have you know, the protein is whey protein, which is Correct.

Laura Modi
Grass fed whey protein. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And the and the carbohydrates are all lactose, not, like, it's essentially high fructose corn syrup or some derivative of that.

Laura Modi
Yeah. And if you really zoom out for a second, formula is food, and that is something that we've taken very seriously, which is if breast milk is a natural food coming from a human body, how do we get as close as possible to developing something that is as natural as that?

Dr. Mark Hyman
And one of the things, for example, assuming you don't put in, they put in a lot of thickeners like carrageenan. And these have been shown to cause gut disturbances. And we're seeing just an epidemic of childhood allergies, of true allergies, not just sensitivities like peanut allergy. We're seeing an explosion of things like eczema, asthma, gut issues, colic. And also, as kids get older, we're seeing increasing autoimmune issues, and this whole cascade of problems.

And we know, for example, that these emulsifiers, which are things that kind of make things smooth, like the formula smooth, are often a cause of leaky gut and damage to the gut lining. And that that something that they just throw in the formula. And so you're getting all these weird industrial ingredients and other things in there that that aren't serving the baby.

Laura Modi
I have a I have a general rule as a as a formula CEO, you know, and it's it's hard because you're you're in an industry where you're looking to constantly in evolve and improve your product and and meet the latest science. And while I feel so deeply committed to never compromising, I also never wanna be in a position of also formula shaming. And, you know you know

Dr. Mark Hyman
Out of mind. I'll do it.

Laura Modi
Challenging. It's there is there's a lot of formulas out there that have a certain makeup, and whether it's availability, affordability, access, there is room to improve. Holding those two truths at the same time is is really important as we continue to evolve the industry. The

Dr. Mark Hyman
thing I I wanna sort of dive into a little bit more is about the microbiome because there's a company, and you you actually have this as part of things you offer, which is a probiotic for babies. Maybe people just I'll just sort of unpack a little bit of this and have you sort of jump in with me. But we've seen, you know, increasing c section rates, almost one in four births now. Of the one in three births. We're seeing, you know, lack of babies going through the birth canal and colonizing their microbiome.

We're seeing I mean, I give lectures all over, and I always ask the question, how many of this audience have never taken antibiotic? And like, no literally nobody will raise their hand, or occasionally, like, one person will raise their hand.

Laura Modi
Wow.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And so everybody's taking an antibiotic, which will kill one of the most including women or babies, one of the most important species

Laura Modi
In your microbiome.

Dr. Mark Hyman
In your microbiome called bifidobacterium infantis. Yeah. After the

Laura Modi
infant Infantis. Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And this is something that colonizes the baby's gut and prevents leaky gut, regulates immune system, prevents autoimmunity, allergies. And this is something that is fed by the Prebiotics. The prebiotic sugars

Laura Modi
Correct.

Dr. Mark Hyman
In breast milk. Correct. Can you talk about the importance of that and how you're working to kind of address this in some way, or you cannot talk about it?

Laura Modi
Yeah. Well, we're doing a lot of studies on it. It's near and dear to my heart. Very near and dear to my heart. I think looking at all of the different, bifido cultures and the opportunity that formulas have to cultivate what has just been missing, the short of it is formula companies haven't gotten there.

There isn't a perfect solution. And while there is probiotics that are found in formula or probiotic drops that you can add, we still haven't been able to accomplish that gap yet.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. There's a company called Evivo.

Laura Modi
Evivo. No. They they their their Bifrostrain is is exactly what should be given to babies.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. And it's it's something I recommend all pregnant women to take and for their babies to take. And then when you give a baby a probiotic, unlike adults, they'll colonize the gut, and it'll stay there as opposed to as an adult, if you take a probiotic, you have to keep taking it in order for it to work.

Laura Modi
And there's natural prebiotics also found in lactose, which again, another argument for using lactose over corn syrup.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And then, you know, what's really interesting about this is that 15% of the carbohydrates are these sort of prebiotic fibers.

Laura Modi
Hate those.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. They call it human milk oligosaccharides. And, like, I think 50% of the of the carbohydrates calories are from this completely unusable food for babies. They they can't use it. The it's for the bugs, not the babies.

Laura Modi
And that is something I am learning today.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Wow. Yeah. So that's like, wow. Like, if, you know, one in seven calories is actually not for the baby

Laura Modi
But for the gut.

Dr. Mark Hyman
From the carbohydrates you have for the gut. Wow. That tells you the importance of this. And so I think it's something we have to figure out how to properly navigate with formula, but there's ways around it.

Laura Modi
There is. But I think you're you're highlighting something really beautiful here. The opportunities to continue to get closer and closer to breast milk are there. And especially when I just think about The US continuing to be seen and should be seen as the gold standard of how to make infant formula, we have an opportunity to advance that innovation. Yeah.

We should have other countries looking at America as the country to emulate.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Totally. I mean, I think that's a 100% what we're not doing except for you.

Laura Modi
Heads down.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So how do you how do you differ from the European formulation?

Laura Modi
Well, look. We we match the European nutritional standards, but the biggest advantages were made domestically. The fundamental belief is that you should be able to get the highest quality formula with the best recipe that meets the latest science, but you shouldn't have to ship it in from overseas. Mhmm. Having it sit on a cargo ship and brought in, I mean, that raises all different types of questions around quality and safety.

We're we're spending this time talking about the nutritional aspects of it, but you break down the safety requirements of infant formula, the contaminations that you need to avoid. Yeah. And baby is one of the most vulnerable audiences out there, and producing that formula domestically is where you get the the perfect combo.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, it's amazing. Your formula is also organic. Correct. It's non GMO. It's locally sourced.

It's like checks a lot of the boxes. Right?

Laura Modi
As it should. Yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Have you done any studies looking at the impact of babies using Bobbie formula versus conventional formula?

Laura Modi
Not yet. Too early. But You know, we're we're only in our fifth year, and the goal is to just

Dr. Mark Hyman
You're a baby company.

Laura Modi
We're we're a baby company. We're we're not yet in our toddler phase. Okay. There's a lot to be done there. But, I mean, look.

You mentioned this at the very beginning. It's it's also so much more than the baby. It's also mom. The mother is the sole provider for a child. And as a company, we're focused on not just what's in the tin, but, like, also what's outside the tin.

How do you change the conversation that surrounds feeding? How do you support mom going through this and the parent who's trying to decide what the right feeding choices are? There's been so much shame and stigma tied to how you feed your child so much that we have to develop a new relationship with it. So I take evolving our conversation and evolving the relationship that you have with how you feed your baby just as important as as the nutritional.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Well, let's talk about that because, you know, you you often talk about this false binary choice between breast milk and formula. But it's the case that most of the time, women do both.

Laura Modi
Correct.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So can we talk about that and the the numbers behind

Laura Modi
it? Everyone loves a binary story. It's so simple. It fits nice in, you know, into a pamphlet. The breastfeeding pamphlet and the formula pamphlet.

And the reality is that's that's that's not the case. That's not how most people are actually feeding, and they're combo feeding. And this isn't just coming from me as a formula CEO. I think in in a recent study, this the most recent study from the CDC said that eighty six percent of parents eighty six percent of babies born in 2022 were breastfed longer than ever before since they've been doing their study. That's an amazing accomplishment.

That's huge. But here's what also followed it. They said while breastfeeding is natural, it's not easy. And part of accomplishing the longevity of those that were breastfeeding was due to combo feeding, the introduction of formula. I'm I'm blanking on when it actually came out, I think, a year or two ago.

But what that study is essentially saying is most parents are doing both. And, actually, if they do introduce formula and they can take some of that burden or weight away from feeling like, oh, I've just given my child some formula, so I should move exclusively to this. They might actually breastfeed longer.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So so it's not a binary choice.

Laura Modi
It's not a binary choice.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And and if you're choosing formula for your baby, you wanna choose the best possible formula.

Laura Modi
Correct. We shouldn't look at it, you know, just because you can't access exclusively what is considered the best. The alternative should also be the best.

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's interesting. I thought about this, and I don't really even barely wanna bring it up because I don't want people to to kind of think that breastfeeding is bad because they don't think it's bad. But the reality is that, you know, most humans are toxic waste dumps, and and it's it always concerns me. Like, I and when you me I'm on the board of the environmental working group, and there was a study done which they looked at umbilical cord blood from babies before they'd taken their first breath, even before they breastfed. Right?

Wow. There were 287 known toxins in the umbilical cord.

Laura Modi
Wow.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Flame retardants, pesticides, glyphosate, DDT, DOCS, and things that have been banned for decades. Heavy metals, phthalates. I mean, you just the list goes on and on. I I always sort of joke, but somebody should come up with a breast milk You know? Wow.

But I don't think it's possible, but, like, it would kinda be cool, like, a water filter so you don't have to Yeah. Get all that. But the the beautiful thing about what you're sourcing is it doesn't have any of that.

Laura Modi
No. Well, breast milk is so personal, and it's so dynamic. It's so dynamic. It like, it's dynamic in a way that nothing will ever compare. Nothing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right. It changes from different stages of breastfeeding. Yeah.

Laura Modi
It is one of the most beautiful sources in the world. It really is. Again, I think a big part of me starting an infant formula company was because I so desperately wanted this liquid gold that I wasn't able to give my children exclusively. But what you're also highlighting is it's so personal and dynamic that it varies dramatically for every single mother, for every single parent. And we don't we don't talk about that enough.

Yeah. There's so many other environmental factors that play into the quality of how a child is fed or the choices that you actually have available to yourself. It's often seen we're just talking about the binary piece of it, that people are choosing one path or another. What we're ignoring is most people don't have a choice. I always found it very hard, the conflict, when I was deciding how I was going to breastfeed or formula feed my my next kid and realized, oh, but I don't have the paid leave to be able to do so.

So here I am, you know, with with the same governmental body who says you should be exclusively breastfeeding your child for six months is also not giving you the paid leave to

Dr. Mark Hyman
be able do so. Year. I think they give you a year

Laura Modi
of Yeah. I mean, Europe is pretty high up there. So, you know, there there's a conflict in message that we're putting out there, which is really hard on a new mother. They're already going through their own hormonal changes. They're at a place where their identity is being questioned.

They don't know who are, and here we are giving them a conflicting message, to exclusively breastfeed your child for the next thirty five hours and also get back to work. That's a hard thing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So breastfeed per year, but get back to work in twelve weeks.

Laura Modi
As quick as possible.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So Laura, wanted to change directions a little bit. You you know, you're involved not just in have been created another pathway for women to think about formula and and mothers to feed their babies healthier options. But you're also looking at what's happening kind of at a policy level, and I know you got a lot of flack for this, but you met with Bobby Kennedy, RFK junior.

Laura Modi
I did.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And other formula groups who are part of this effort called Operation Stork Speed. Can you speak to what that is, why it's important, and what's going on around this in terms of the regulatory

Laura Modi
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And legislative aspects of protecting our children and improving their health?

Laura Modi
I know I know you have a range of people who come on the show. It's a lot in the world of food, but I think the one thing to differentiate from food to infant formula is infant formula is heavily regulated. And in fact, it is regulated by FDA and, hence, HHS. So they're, you know, going back to the meeting and and sitting with, you know, the the slew of other CEOs in the infant formula industry. This wasn't a question of should we or should we not be there.

This is the agency who regulates our very existence Right. To be in the market. And secondary to that, if there's going to be a conversation around the future of the product that I milk, sweat, and tears pour into this company, then you better believe I'm gonna be at that table talking about how that future should look. So, you know, I think part of the distinction is there's sort of this belief of willingness and partnership when in actuality, this is really a this is a regulated industry, and you have to work with your regulators.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You have to be the table. 100%. Take us inside that room. What were the conversations? And what are the other CEOs of the big pharma companies like Abbott and me saying?

And how are you kind of trying to change the conversation to move things in a in a healthier direction for infants?

Laura Modi
There's nothing more bipartisan, nonpartisan, than what it means to be able to feed your babies. And unfortunately, the topic tends to get polarized, and it shouldn't. So, like, removing that from the table for a second, everyone is aligned that there should be improvements. A few callouts were around the nutritional standards. We talked about DHA.

DHA should be in the formula. Iron levels should be more optimal. We should have limitations on the use of alternative sugars, and all of the things that you should expect to see on the upgrade of infant formula. The second thing we talked about

Dr. Mark Hyman
shouldn't have the equivalent of a can of Coke a day that the baby's consuming?

Laura Modi
That was a huge part of what we should remove. The other thing was about resiliency. So, again, back in 2022, the American president got on the news and talked about how shelves were empty, and we weren't able to feed babies. So we could evolve formula all day long, but we also need to make sure it's available and affordable to the masses. There was a lot of conversations around domestic manufacturing.

Why is it that two players dominate the industry? Why is it that we don't have more manufacturing facilities to be able to turn to and rely on? And I I really loved, I think, that the one tension that this industry has, which is we should never be trading off availability and safety. And part of safety is making sure that it's available and the baby can be fed. So we have to look at the resiliency of the market just as much as the nutritional updating.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And the solution must be a decentralized food system that has multiple channels for for production and for processing, and not just these couple of factories that make infant formula. The same thing happened with meat. They're like, there's five meat companies in the world, and they and if if one of those goes down or it was a crisis.

Laura Modi
What are we gonna do?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. And that happened during COVID. So, again, we we need we need to rethink our whole food system

Laura Modi
The entire field. Before. We need to go back to what FDR did during after the Great Depression, the new deal era. Yeah. It's it's more than just saying here's what we need to do.

Now the question is, what is the private sector doing with the public sector to reform from the ground up? It's it's a form of relief and recovery and reform. The entire system needs to be rethought through. And I think just about manufacturing and, again, one of the most important parts of making infant formula is the safety of producing it.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I mean, the factory has to be clean and safe and good, and you can't have contaminants

Laura Modi
and bad crap. You to come to our facility in Ohio. We will put you in your bunny suit, and we will walk you around. And it it is truly one of the most beautiful things to see because the safety that goes into producing that milk any form of contamination or bacteria that shows up has a more negative consequence than the potential maybe trade of certain ingredients. So the safety is very, very important.

We're we we call ourselves somewhat test obsessed, testing, you know, 2,000 we have 2,000 quality checks for every batch, and we're not investing enough in The US to do that. And, you know, here we are importing our way out of a crisis. You fast forward to maybe the potential harm of that. What are we doing to protect the safety of formula coming in from overseas? Yeah.

5,000 miles away. That's crazy. We're an agricultural nation. We should be able to produce our baby's milk here at home. Yeah.

We we prioritize computer chips and cars and steel. And here we are turning to another nation and saying, hey. We can't make good infant formula. Can you help us?

Dr. Mark Hyman
Right.

Laura Modi
That's wild. Yeah. That's wild. I hope to look back in ten years where, again, another nation is looking at America as the gold standard and wanting to import our formula. And and we have to invest in that.

Dr. Mark Hyman
There's lot of things happening around that. Right? The make made America infant formula act Yes. Protect infant formula from contamination act to try to Crush. Safety issues.

So you're involved in these kind of policy

Laura Modi
efforts? Co created the Made America Infant Formula Act. And what it essentially is is you probably know the CHIPS Act. Billions of dollars put aside to be able to invest in domestic chip manufacturing here in The US. This is a mimic of that, but it's a smaller amount to say, we need new infant formula manufacturers in The US.

And it's not enough to just say, oh, we want to have them. There needs to be incentives. There needs to be tax breaks, production tax breaks. And and then we need to be able to qualify the sort of companies that are also able to do this in a way that breaks up the concentration. It is policy work, and that policy work takes both private and public sector working hand in hand together to make it happen.

And I hope that if these if these do get passed, we should see more Bobbies in the world. Yeah. Yeah. You know, more more companies like mine, and and not just someone walking down the formula aisle and going, what is the, you know, formula I'm gonna choose where there's only five on shelf? There should be way more.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You you also talk a lot about transparency.

Laura Modi
Yes.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And transparency is trust in, you know, labeling. And one of the problems with our food supply is it's not properly labeled, so people don't know what they're getting. Mhmm. Like, know, if you see a pack of cigarettes in Europe, the entire front of the pack says, this will kill you. Don't smoke it.

Like, you can't even find the brand basically on it. And, you know, that changed behavior. Yeah. And so the the problems in America is that we don't have good food labeling by design because the food industry doesn't want us to know what's in it. And so can you talk about sort of labeling and and and testing and disclosures on infant formula, including things about DHA, contaminants.

Yeah. You know, you shouldn't have to call the manufacturer to figure stuff out.

Laura Modi
So That's wild. You know? And then, unfortunately, because there's no rules around it, what ends up happening is you see these marketing claims saying fortified with, but you don't know how much. You don't know the impact on it. And sometimes the use of marketing claims like fortification can actually go in the opposite direction where now there's too much.

And what we're beginning to see with something like iron, that happens to be the case, which is actually we find that US formulas are using too much iron.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. And you get iron overload. It's not good.

Laura Modi
Iron overload, which has negative consequences for, you know, the adolescent age. So the short of it is you shouldn't have to call the manufacturer to question what the levels are or what the specific ingredient is. DHA is another great example of this. You could put in two milligrams per hundred kcal

Dr. Mark Hyman
For sure.

Laura Modi
And say that you have DHA.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. But over Window dressing.

Laura Modi
Over window dressing. But over in the EU, you need to have a minimum of twenty milligrams per hundred kcal. So 10 times much. Exactly. So the short of it is we need and and I think consumers consumers are smart.

Parents are wicked smart. They're doing mini PhDs when they become a parent because they wanna understand every ounce of what they are giving or feeding their baby, putting on their child, and they will see it. So I I think the companies that are are forthcoming to that will be the companies that win.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So there's still room to improve it scientifically. Right?

Laura Modi
Percent. And you all you do this is where you need regulations. You need regulations to come in to also say what what is required for people to share because it is have you ever walked down a formula aisle? Oh, god. It is there needs to be a little bit more joy in it, but it's all consuming.

You know, from the claims to the labels to what am I giving my child to see ingredients you've never heard of before. We need to do a better job allowing a parent to make a decision, allowing a consumer to make a decision without feeling like they need to go back and do a deep Google search on this to make sure it's okay.

Dr. Mark Hyman
How do how do we get there?

Laura Modi
We gotta we gotta change some policies. We gotta enforce some rules. And I also think it's just competition, honestly. I think more and more companies that come in the market that are doing better, like Bobby, will also force the rest to catch up.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Mary, are you the only organic GMO free formula?

Laura Modi
There's a few other smaller ones, but it's less than 5%. Less than 5% of infant formula is USDA organic. Also, that's another huge difference, Mark. The difference between saying something is organic versus USDA organic or made with organic ingredients, you know this better than anyone. Radically different.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Very confusing. Smoke and mirror. So tell us what we should be looking for.

Laura Modi
You should be looking for USDA organic. Look for the seal. There's a reason the seal exists.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Because that's that's determined by very specific criteria and

Laura Modi
Exactly.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Guidelines and inspections.

Laura Modi
Also, it's one of the highest in the world, which is also a false perception that is has crept up over the years, which is organic means something different globally. But USDA organic here in The US is one of the highest standards of organic. And hence why the availability of some of those ingredients can be quite hard Yeah. And the cost of them is also higher.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So can you scale up without with having that?

Laura Modi
Working on it. Working on it. Behind the scenes, the supply chain aspect of making high quality formula is it is a multiple, multiple person's job.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I'm interrupting this conversation because it's an important one. I know there's someone in your life who would connect with Laura's story. Maybe a new parent, a caregiver, or someone navigating their own feeding journey. If this conversation resonates with you, please share it with them. Now, these are conversations that can make someone feel a little less alone.

So, Laura, just kinda help us understand the the problems with our current government programs Yeah. Which is women, infants, and children, and also SNAP or or food stamps. So WIC is women, infants, and children, and they Yeah. There's some concerns about how these processes are done at a at a state and federal level that limit mothers' choices, particularly women who are are part of these programs that often mean they're they're they're under resourced.

Laura Modi
Oh, I remember starting Bobby and going deep into my own research and discovering this, which is fifty percent of babies born in the country rely on WIC. Fifty percent of the babies born rely on a certain formula to be fed. And how the program works and let me just also first underscore, I think WIC is an incredible offering. SNAP is an incredible offering. The program has helped so many families in this country.

The way it's set up for infant formula is that the two major companies will bid. They will basically bid for the winning per state, and they will be the formula of choice in that state for any WIC participants. So what that does is it limits choice.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Non choice.

Laura Modi
Formula non choice. Exactly. So imagine now you are a parent in a certain state. You have your child. You're not given a choice.

You're on WIC. You are told here is the brand and here is the formula that your baby can be on it. We've just we've just spoken about the evolution and the improvements and the quality that can happen with formula. And here we are with a formula that is not evolving. There's they don't have any choice with, and this is what they're gonna feed their baby.

I mean, frankly, I think it's it's a sign that inequality starts day one. Day one.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Now there are there initiatives in policy making now that are gonna address this?

Laura Modi
There there is a lot of questions being raised. I mean, even going back to operation historic speed, we we can't evolve the system without considering half of the population. Right?

Dr. Mark Hyman
It's like you're it's like you're bidding on a fighter jet contract. This is like babies.

Laura Modi
This is babies. Yes. And, we don't want to have any we don't want to look at the program as a negative because the program is fantastic. But, you know, Bobby has come into the industry since this has been in. We should evolve the way the the requirements are written so that other companies can also be able to to meet the program.

We should evolve the funding. But the program itself just hasn't evolved.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And what about SNAP? That's the food stamp program.

Laura Modi
SNAP's slightly different. Again, another fundamental and very important program that a large percent of this population, millions

Dr. Mark Hyman
46,000,000 Americans.

Laura Modi
46 millions Americans rely on. And to have them wake up one day and not be able to rely on the funding that was essentially purchasing their food to feed their families and their babies. And formula is is a big item that is purchased through SNAP. So you're also adding safety concerns to that. What people then do is they look to ration the purchases that they're making, and you're you're you're feeding an infant.

They need to be able to get the caloric intake. They need to be able to grow and develop. So these things are fundamental, and there should be zero compromise to what it means. We'll want to fund them, and then also evolve the programs and reform them from the ground up.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And how would we fix SNAP? Because WIC, it seems like if we had more choice and more availability, how would you fix SNAP around these?

Laura Modi
One, keep it funded. Keep it funded is the number one. But then also, there should be a pride and dignity in being able to go out and buy your food. Right? And the fact that there's only limited choices for where you can go use those snap dollars also says to someone, if you have snap dollars, here's where you should go purchase your items, or here's the brands that you can use.

We have to make it wider.

Dr. Mark Hyman
So you're you're you've you've been this person. You're this mother

Laura Modi
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Walking down the aisle, like, how do you give advice to mothers and women who are trying to figure out how to navigate this space and what to think about, what to look for, how do they make the right choice for themselves and for their baby?

Laura Modi
Your best is best. Is one of the most important things to consume. The real formula in life is everything else going on around you. Your support system, the medication you need to take, your your own lineage, your own anatomical body's ability to do it, even your baby being able to latch or being thumbed up. Like, you name it.

There's a 101 factors that go into decisions that you're gonna have to make when it comes to feeding your child. Did you get paid leave? Did you not get paid leave? Surrogacy, you name it. And what we are not fully embracing is that each person's journey is gonna be different, and your best is what's best.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Your best is best. Not breast is best, but your best is best. Exactly. I think that's been the message. And and I still think that breast milk would be the first thing that women should try to do.

Because from a health perspective, there's nothing like it for a baby. Totally. And so even even a few weeks or months can make a big difference. You get colostrum. You get a lot of things that help the baby's gut health.

A 100%. Healthily.

Laura Modi
But consider everything else. Yeah. And and if you're able to breastfeed a little bit longer because you've been able to introduce formula or your support system has changed, like, that's amazing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And the babies don't get kinda messed up switching back and forth?

Laura Modi
It takes it takes some work. We actually we recently launched a service called the feeding room, which is like my second baby. Yeah. Because I it's it is the support system. Right?

And I remember with with my first few kids, if I needed breasts if I needed breastfeeding help, I had to call a lactation consultant. If I needed formula help, it was on Reddit at two in the morning going deep into the subreddits trying to figure out what to use. There was no holistic place to turn to. And that also leads to the stigma as well when you when you think it has this binary path of where to get help.

Dr. Mark Hyman
You don't know where to go.

Laura Modi
You don't know where to go. So being able to turn to something I mean, we we provide hundreds of folks who've come to us where we're literally just providing lactation help, flange sizes, pumping schedules. And to be in a world where you are able to figure out what is your feeding plan, what is your feeding goal versus how do I fit into this path or this ideology that has been put on me is what we need to evolve to.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And and that's empowering women and not feel shame or guilt or bad about what they're meaning to do. And then actually providing choices that they can feel good about.

Laura Modi
Exactly.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Like the formula you created, which I personally wouldn't feel good about feeding my grandkid or baby if I had a new one infant formula as it is now with the industrial processing that it has. I I I just would not. But that doesn't mean that there aren't good choices and alternatives, and I think that's kind of where we're hopefully leading in. Hopefully, you'll push the market because that's often what happens.

Laura Modi
Markets need to be pushed.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Yeah. And then you're a big disruptor, and you're disrupting the formula market in a beautiful way. I think

Laura Modi
Thank you.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Would love some of you to maybe just think about projecting out, you know, five years, ten years. Where where do you sell this going, and what what is gonna be available? Because, you know, how do we create something as close to approximate as as breast milk as possible without compromising?

Laura Modi
Yeah. More studies. More innovation. And like I said, I think The US has an opportunity to be leading the path in this. We have incredible scientists and researchers out there that are going deep into the microbiome to cognitive development to the impact of certain ingredients Yeah.

Or the ability to make and mimic certain features that are in breast milk that are maybe nonsynthetic. So I hope that in the next ten years, we can just continue to creep closer and closer and closer to the dynamic nature of breast milk. And while we do that, my secondary goal is that we also reduce the guilt and the shame, and we stop projecting our own opinions and our personal experiences.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Get judgy.

Laura Modi
We gotta gotta lower the judgment. Lower the judgment. Lower the bullying. Let's let's allow people to be their best and also treat them as smart individuals to make their own choices. So, yeah, culture needs to change along with the product.

So in ten years, when we have this conversation again, the gut microbiome will be better, and the conversation will have changed.

Dr. Mark Hyman
I think that's a huge one. I think the microbiome is is a big unlock if we can figure that out. And and I wonder if there's part of what I often think, you know, from others, I've certainly come to take the probiotics, and you created a probiotic. I wanna talk about that. But also, you know, prebiotics.

So maybe you can't put it directly in the formula. There's prebiotics in formula. Yeah. Yeah. There are.

Is there is there is there

Laura Modi
in Bobby's formula? We've natural prebiotics. So we we test it, and it comes through on the lactose. Again, push a 100% lactose.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Interesting. Because there's you know, the oligosaccharides that come from

Laura Modi
Yeah.

Dr. Mark Hyman
From milk are a little different than that, but it's it's yeah. It's interesting. And I think, you know

Laura Modi
The study of HMOs is a really, really fascinating space.

Dr. Mark Hyman
And it's been lot about this. Milk, oligosaccharide, not health maintenance organizations.

Laura Modi
Yeah. That's right. That is the other thing.

Dr. Mark Hyman
HMOs like a it tastes like Kaiser. This is this is a problem because, like I said earlier, you know, even if you breastfeed, you know, a lot of a lot of times, the mother doesn't have the right bacteria that it passed on to its baby. And so the baby's already starting out a deficit. So there's ways to sort of correct that problem we've created because of our overuse of antibiotics, and because of the increased c section rates, and because of the various kinds of other things that are going on that cause these sort of epidemic of chronic disease in children. I mean, that's sort of what what was highlighted with the making America healthy when they make you know, I'm looking at the children.

This first commission report was really was focusing on the children. Yeah. It was It was. Kinda shocking to see, know, how our kids are at the effect of so much what we're doing. And and that doesn't need to continue.

And your work is just helping shift that. Tell me more about the vitamin D and the probiotics that you've also created and why.

Laura Modi
Many parents will go to the doctor. Every everyone, like, has this flashback. They go to the doctor, and the doctor says that your child needs more vitamin D drops. Actually, what's really interesting is you typically need more vitamin D if your baby is exclusively breastfed than you do if they are exclusively formula fed. And what we found is that seventy percent of parents who use Bobbi are actually combo feeding, and they are being told by their doctor and by their pediatrician to introduce more vitamin D.

So we put out vitamin D, but we also meet the European levels of vitamin D in the formula. But then the probiotics is I'll bring you back to just more of my my theory on this. You have some babies who need more probiotics and others who don't. So I think that the concept that there is a standard level for every baby is not true. It's not.

Every baby is different. And whether it's you're seeing it through their digestive track, struggling to be able to keep formula down through their we we say proof is in the poop, and the poop will tell you what needs to happen. So we put out probiotic drops for those parents that are looking for moments in time during that first year of feeding where they feel like they need to add us. But maybe they don't want it exclusively.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Wow. What an incredible story. Thank God you were in that aisle even though it was painful and frustrating.

Laura Modi
I was.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Fever. Allowed you to kind of come on the other side of it and do something good with the suffering you had, and the realization that, you know, you are not alone, and there are many many other women who are out there confused, and uncertain, and afraid, and don't know how to navigate this, and are told conflicting messages, and also know that the goosing formula market is really a mess, and that they're not getting quality that they wanna feed their babies. And so thank you for

Laura Modi
Thank you.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Taking a risk, for leaving your job at Airbnb and for, like, Google, and just getting into baby formula.

Laura Modi
There's no greater joy. Honestly, I mean, have four kids of my own, and the ability to wake up every day and know that I've been given the responsibility and duty to be able to feed babies, I mean, not there's nothing that beats that. There's nothing. It's beautiful.

Dr. Mark Hyman
Beautiful. Thank you, Laura. Thanks for being on the podcast. Conversation. I like it a lot.

Dr. Mark Hyman
If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Doctor Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the doctor Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts.

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