Friday, November 28, 2014

Thankful for Liquid Hope

Let's play a game. What "food product", made by Nestle, contains the following ingredients?

WATER, MALTODEXTRIN, SUGAR, SODIUM CASEINATE (FROM MILK), CANOLA OIL, AND LESS THAN 2% OF MEDIUM CHAIN TRIGLYCERIDES (FROM COCONUT AND/OR PALM KERNEL OIL), CALCIUM CASEINATE, SOYBEAN OIL, POTASSIUM CITRATE, SOY FIBER, PARTIALLY HYDROLYZED GUAR GUM, MAGNESIUM CHLORIDE, CALCIUM PHOSPHATE, HYDROXYLATED SOY LECITHIN, SODIUM ASCORBATE, CHOLINE CHLORIDE, SALT, SODIUM CITRATE, MAGNESIUM PHOSPHATE, ALPHA-TOCOPHERYL ACETATE, L-CARNITINE,  TAURINE,  ZINC SULFATE, FERROUS SULFATE, NIACINAMIDE, VITAMIN A PALMITATE, CALCIUM PANTOTHENATE, COPPER GLUCONATE, PYRIDOXINE HYDROCHLORIDE, MANGANESE SULFATE, THIAMINE HYDROCHLORIDE, RIBOFLAVIN, VITAMIN D3, CITRIC ACID, BETA-CAROTENE, FOLIC ACID, CHROMIUM CHLORIDE, BIOTIN, POTASSIUM IODIDE, SODIUM MOLYBDATE, SODIUM SELENITE, PHYTONADIONE, VITAMIN B12

Give up? An energy drink? Nope. Candy bar? Nah. Nespresso pods? Wrong.The answer is: Isosource 1.5, one of the Nestle products routinely prescribed by Doctors for people with feeding tubes - and there are millions of us. It's a huge and highly profitable market. My monthly bill for Isosource, which is covered by Medicare, is $2200.

I had my feeding tube placed in January of this year. They kept me overnight at MGH. Prior to my discharge the next day, we met with dietician from Coram/CVS. She explained that I had been "prescribed" a "nutrient dense" formula and that we would receive monthly shipments from Coram along with supplies which include large syringes, tubing and IV bags for gravity drip feeding. 

When we began the feedings, I immediately experienced, what Linda and I call, "baby spit up". It looks identical to what our boys would spit up after breast feeding. We played with the speed of flow through the tube and my sitting position during feeding. Finally, Linda sat down and looked at the ingredient list and found the list above. Not a single whole food ingredient. We called Coram and they sent us their whole food formula, again produced by Nestle, called Compleat. When we got it, we reviewed the label only to find the basic ingredients were identical to Isosource, with exception of added dehydrated chicken carrots and peas, less than 2% cranberry juice and tomato purée. Hardly a drastic change. 

Then we found Liquid Hope and had an angel of a visiting nurse, who has a Masters in Nutrition combined with a never say die attitude. We embarked on a conquest to acquire real nutrition for me. Between Linda and the new nurse, the powers that be didn't stand a chance. Liquid Hope is made from real food" including: chick peas, brown rice,carrots, green peas' sprouted quinoa, sweet potato, miso, almond butter, kale garlic and herbs. 


After weeks of wrangling with insurance issues and waiting for the folks at Liquid Hope to find a distributor in Maine, we received our first shipment on Wednesday. 
In my humble opinion, the medical community should be ashamed of recommending that already immune compromised patients and others dealing with a wide range of afflictions with compromised constitutions, including infants, be fed this semi-synthetic "candy" as a substitute for nutrition. 

There's no substitute for real food.

Here is a blog post from the founder of Liquid Hope:

http://functionalformularies.com/blog/#sthash.vCPB1tZm.jEs5tqPP.dpbs




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