Hello and welcome to the Nutrition Divopodcast. I'm your host, Monica Reinegel, and today I have

an answer to a listener question, and at the end, we have a guest appearance from my friend

Mignon Fogardy of the Grammar Girl podcast. She joined me to talk about a grammar-related

comment that one of my listeners sent to me. But first, Nikki writes with a question

about the current shortage of baby formula. I recall a recipe that was popular when I had

my first baby, she wrote, made with evaporated milk and caro syrup. Authorities are strongly

advising against homemade recipes, but what appearance do if none is available? Well, as

I'm sure you've heard by now, we are experiencing a critical shortage of commercial baby formula

in the United States. And it was one of those perfect storms, a huge manufacturer recall

combined with ongoing supply chain issues, which I've noticed has now replaced unprecedented

call volume as the catch-all explanation for everything that goes wrong in the customer

service realm. But the supply chain issues are real, and they were already causing spotty

availability of infant formula. And this in turn was causing nervous parents to stockpile

formula. After all, infants who are not able to breastfeed are 100% dependent on infant

formula for their sustenance. It's just not something you can afford to run out of,

so parents weren't taking any chances. But as you may remember from the early days of

the pandemic and how difficult it was to find toilet paper, fears of shortages can quickly

create actual shortages, because fear of running out causes people to start hoarding supplies.

Then in February, we had a huge manufacturer's recall of infant formula due to possible

bacterial contamination, and an already fragile situation turned into a full-blown crisis.

At this writing, about half of the nation's retailers are completely sold out of infant

formula, and the rest of them are strictly limiting purchases to discourage hoarding,

...