Functional Formularies' "Liquid Hope"

NASCAR Racer, Dave Smith
Finds Hope for His Special Needs Daughter

Functional Formularies, the company responsible for creating the first commercial produced whole food, shelf stable, organic feeding tube formula, Liquid Hope, announced today their partnership with veteran NASCAR racer, Dave Smith in the Carneros 200 Pro Series West Race, which will take place on June 22 during the 25th Anniversary of the Toyota/Savemart 350 Weekend at the Sonoma Raceway. Smith will pilot the Naake-Klauer Motorsports-prepared no. 88 iON Camera Chevrolet in honor of his tube fed dependent daughter, Adrianna.

“For the last two years, my wife and I have searched tirelessly for a solution to get our special needs daughter the proper nutrition,” said Smith. “As a former premature baby, born at 3 ½ months early, Adrianna was never a good eater. Shortly after her first birthday, we were forced to have a feeding tube surgically placed in her stomach so that we could feed her. She was starving herself to death.”

Smith, who was disappointed in the commercially made formulas, looked for an alternative product so that Adrianna could thrive instead of just survive. He found what he searched for in Liquid Hope. “I couldn’t even bring myself to drink what I was pouring into my daughter’s system,” remarked Smith, “I was thrilled to find a real food product to replace those disgusting formulas”.

Robin Gentry McGee, founder of Functional Formularies, developed Liquid Hope after five years of research in Ohio and South Carolina. McGee was inspired to perfect an enteral formula when her father suffered a traumatic brain injury in 2005. In the hospital and nearing death, McGee, who has an extensive background in nutrition, sensed that her father’s chemical-laden feeding-tube formula was doing him more harm than good. As his health continued to decline with additional symptoms after his initial injury, McGee felt compelled to investigate finding him an organic whole foods formula for his feeding tube.

Following an extensive and thorough search, McGee was disheartened to discover that no such thing existed. With her own expertise with whole foods, and through some intensive brainstorming with her natural-foods colleagues, she created a feeding-tube formula that consisted of nothing but “real” food — nutritionally dense, vegan, dairy-free, gluten-free, GMO-free whole food, with complex carbohydrates and no sugar added. She and her family affectionately dubbed the supplement “Liquid Hope.”

McGee agrees that in the creation of Liquid Hope, necessity was the mother of invention. “I did not set out to commercialize Liquid Hope. I merely wanted to help my father get better. I feel strongly that when given the right tools, the body has an innate wisdom for healing, and to this day, I question how that can happen with sugar-filled chemical water, which is the basis for most enteral food.”

“After I created this formula to help my dad, word began to get around about what I’d done, and I started to get many emails from others looking for the same thing I’d set out to find. Knowing from experience that such a product didn’t exist, I realized Liquid Hope could help so many others if it was commercially available. I deeply believe that my father’s illness allowed me to give a great gift to the world,” said McGee.

Smith is not the only athlete to find a miracle in Liquid Hope. Two former NFL players who suffer from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease) — Oakland Raiders’ Steve Smith and New Orleans Saints’ Steve Gleason — have introduced the meal replacement into their diet in an attempt to stave off the effects of their debilitating disease. Gentry is part of a team of people known as “The Healers,” a group started by Dr. Craig Oster, who has lived with ALS for 18 years - a rarity - and attributes his survival to a mostly raw, whole-foods diet. In addition, Liquid Hope is being considered for use in clinical studies involving whole-foods nutrition and ALS outcomes.

With over 440,000 children and adults living with feeding tubes, Smith hopes to raise awareness of Liquid Hope with the donation of sponsorship on his no. 88 NASCAR this weekend in Sonoma.

Liquid Hope is currently available through McGee’s Web site, www.functionalformularies.com

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