by Marion Nestle

Currently browsing posts about: Baby food

Feb 4 2025

Avoiding toxic metals in baby foods

A reader, William Haaf, alerted me to this one: California companies required to disclose heavy metal content in baby food

As of January 2025, baby food manufacturers selling in California must disclose test results for four heavy metals – arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury – via an on-pack QR code.

The law, Assembly Bill 899 (AB 899), was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2023 and requires monthly testing of baby food for the specified contaminants.

Manufacturers must now provide a QR code on product packaging that links to publicly available test results, including batch numbers and links to the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) information on toxic heavy metals.

What this is about

How to avoid toxic metals in baby foods: Suggestions

  • Offer a variety of healthy vegetables and fruits
  • Make your own baby food
  • Limit highly processed foods
  • Limit rice cereal
  • Offer other cereals and whole grains
  • If you must give fruit juice, make your own
  • Limit processed snacks
  • Don’t use teething biscuits.
  • Test your tap water

 

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Jan 30 2024

The endless hazards of commercial baby foods: lead and pesticides

LEAD

I’ve posted previously about the recent finding of high levels of lead—and now chromium—in applesauce pouches.

I’ve also posted about the inadequacy of inspections of such products.

The lead problems are continuing.

The FDA says it has received 89 complaints as of January 16, with the average age of the affected children less than one year (you have to scroll way down to see the latest updates).

The CDC says it has received reports from state and local health departments:

Total Cases: 385

Confirmed Cases: 97

Probable Cases: 253

Suspect Cases: 35

Both agencies say: Do not feed recalled products to your children!

  • WanaBana apple cinnamon fruit puree pouches – including three packs
  • Schnucks-brand cinnamon-flavored applesauce pouches and variety pack
  • Weis-brand cinnamon applesauce pouches

What caused this?  The best guess is (deliberate?) adulteration of the cinnamon.  Not nice to think about.

PESTICIDES

I read in The Guardian: Nearly 40% of conventional baby food contains toxic pesticides, US study finds.

The research, conducted by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) non-profit, looked at 73 products and found at least one pesticide in 22 of them. Many products showed more than one pesticide, and the substances present a dangerous health threat to babies, researchers said.

The EWG research: New EWG study (2023): Pesticides still found in baby food but most-toxic threats eliminated through advocacy, regulation.

  • New EWG research finds fewer pesticides in baby food than in the  groundbreaking 1995 study, Pesticides in Baby Food.
  • Though EWG detected some pesticides, the most toxic have been removed.
  • EWG’s advocacy helped drive market change – but the fight for safer food continues.
  • Federal oversight of pesticides in children’s food is inadequate, as explored in depth in a 1993 landmark National Academies of Science study.
  • No pesticides were detected in any of the 15 organic products.

Well, this message is clear: if you must buy commercial baby food, buy organic.

Overall, you are better off feeding babies the healthy foods you eat, pureed or cut up so they don’t cause choking, and as unsalted and unsugared as possible.

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Dec 20 2023

Lead in baby food pouches: not a pretty story

A few weeks ago,  the FDA announced  volunary recalls of  3 brands of baby pouches containing apple sauce with cinnamon, because they contained excess lead.

Lead is poisonous to children’s nervous systems and brain development; there is no safe level of lead intake.

DO NOT LET YOUR KIDS EAT THESE PRODUCTS!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The FDA inspected the plant in Ecuador where cinnamon apple sauce is made; the amounts of lead were shockingly high.  Food Safety News reports:

The applesauce, sold in pouches packaged for children, has been found to have a lead content of 5110 parts per million (ppm) and 2270 ppm. The international Codex body is considering adopting a maximum level of 2.5 ppm for lead in bark spices, including cinnamon.

What is even more shocking about this situation is how the FDA found out about the lead—not by testing but because

…a developing investigation by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services and the North Carolina Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services [found] about four children with elevated blood lead levels, indicating potential acute lead toxicity.

The state investigation identified WanaBana apple cinnamon fruit puree pouches as a potential shared source of exposure. As part of their investigation, the department of health and human services analyzed multiple lots of WanaBana apple cinnamon fruit puree, detecting extremely high concentrations of lead.

The FDA then announced it was investigating cinnamon as a source of the lead.

It traced the cinnamon to a supplier in Ecuador.

The FDA suspects that somewhere along the supply chain, someone deliberately added lead to the cinnamon to maintain its color and increase its weight.

This reminds me of the addition of Chinese melamine to pet food and infant formula in 2006 and 2007 (I wrote about the pet food scandal in Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine).

This also points to the need for strengthening the FDA.  It is not required to test products for lead and neither are manufacturers.

The FDA has proposed action levels for lead in foods, but these are neither final nor implemented.

The New York Times quoted Tom Neltner, safety expert at the Environmental Defense Fund:

That the levels of lead in children’s blood tends to be the first line of detection for lead in food is “effectively using kids as canaries…What this shows is a breakdown in the agency, and an industry that needs to be fixed.”

By industry, I’m assuming he means baby food and I could not agree more.

Pouches may be convenient for parents, but they promote sweet tastes and don’t teach kids how to eat real foods.  One study concluded:

Squeeze pouch products available in Australia are nutritionally poor, high in sugars, not fortified with iron, and there is a clear risk of harm tothe health of infant and young children if these products are fed regularly. The marketing messages and labelling on squeeze pouches are misleading and do not support WHO or Australian NHMRC recommendations for breastfeeding or appropriate introduction of complementary foods and labelling of products. There is an urgent need for improved regulation of product composition, serving sizes and labelling to protect infants and young children aged 0–36 months and better inform parents.

That goes for U.S. products too.

Caveat emptor.

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Nov 28 2023

The hazards of feeding babies and young children: What to do?

I’ve been collecting items on feeding kids.  Here are four.

I.  FDA Warning Letters: The FDA has sent warning letters to ByHeart, Mead Johnson Nutrition (Reckitt), & Perrigo Wisconsin for violating basic food safety standards in manufacture of infant formula.

They [letters] reflect findings from FDA inspections of these facilities over the last several months. At the time of each inspection, the FDA issued inspectional observations and exercised oversight of each firm as they initiated recalls (in December 2022, February 2023 and March 2023) to remove product potentially contaminated with Cronobacter sakazakii from the marketplace…The FDA is issuing these letters now as part of its normal regulatory process and to reinforce to these firms the importance of instituting and maintaining appropriate corrective actions when they detect pathogens to ensure compliance with the FDA’s laws and regulations. As part of this, the firms must, among other things, thoroughly conduct root cause investigations and perform subsequent cleaning and sanitation activities. Notably, firms also need to properly evaluate their cleaning and sanitation practices, schedules, and procedures before releasing product. 

Comment: What shocks me is the implication that the companies are not already doing this as part of their normal routines.

II.  Baby food pouches with lead sicken children.   

At least 18 more children have been sickened by the recently recalled applesauce fruit pouches due to dangerous lead contamination, the Food and Drug Administration said, in a recent update.  That brings the total number of affected children to 52. Applesauce pouches recall timeline:From recalls to poisoned kids in multiple states

Comment: Yes, I know self-feeding pouches are convenient, but I sure don’t like them much.  They are usually loaded with sugar and they don’t teach kids about diverse food flavors and textures.  Quality control, apparently, is a big issue.  My vote: avoid.

III. Environmental Working Group study finds 40% of commercial baby foods to contain toxic pesticides.

  • EWG sampled 73 products from three popular brands: 58 non-organic, or conventional, baby foods and 15 organic.
  • At least one pesticide was detected in 22 of the conventional baby foods.
  • No pesticides were detected in any of the 15 organic products.

Comment: Pesticides may be in all foods but they get concentrated in baby foods.  The moral here is clear; if you want baby foods free of harmful pesticides, buy organic.  For more on this, see article in The Guardian.

IV. The marketing of ultra-processed foods especially targets infants and young children.   A study done in the UK provides ample documentation of anything you would want to know about this practice.

Comment: Food companies say they have to market to young children in order to meet sales growth targets.  Ethics is not a consideration here.

Given that situation, what to do?

Understand: commercial infant and baby foods are convenient, but enormously profitable to manufacturers.  Profits induce corporations to cut safety and health cautions.  This tension should make you think twice about using commercial infant and child feeding products.

To the extent you can:

  • Breast feed when possible, for as long as possible
  • If you use infant formula, switch around the brands (they are all the same, nutritionally); buy organic if you can afford it.
  • Make your own baby foods (put whatever healthy foods you are eating or have around in a tiny blender).; buy organic foods if you can afford them.
  • Feed kids real foods as soon as they can grab, chew, and swallow them without choking.

If you eat a generally healthy diet, get your kids eating it as soon as they can.

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Nov 23 2021

The Dietary Guidelines as a marketing opportunity

You might think of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans as federal nutrition advice about how to eat healthfully but to some food companies it’s a marketing opportunity.

FoodNavigator-USA.com writes that the new guidelines for children under age 2 are a “treasure map” for Gerber, a leading baby food manufacturer.

the guidelines underscore the need for products that help babies consume sufficient iron, vitamin D and other nutrients of concern, safely introduce potential allergens, cut back on added-sugar, and cultivate diverse palate preferences to ensure healthy dietary preferences and reduce the risk of picky eaters later.\nInnovative, iron-enriched products need to boost consumption.

How does this work?

One of the main messages in the Dietary Guidelines is to provide infants and young children with sufficient iron.

Gerber to the rescue!

All you have to do is “feed children two servings of infant cereal a day.”

I still vote for feeding kids real food….

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Oct 7 2021

Yes, you can make ice cream from infant formula and breast milk

Last week, I posted a list of articles about odd ice cream flavors, mostly Lithuanian.  Several readers pointed out that the links all went to the same article (oops, my bad).

They particularly wanted to see the ones about ice cream made from infant formula and breast milk.

Really?  People do this?  Yes, they do.

Especially in the UK.

If you are in the UK, you can buy commercial products, like one “made with love in the Lake District.”

Or you can make your own with breast milk or formula.  A company tried this in 2011, but got into trouble over safety issues.

It’s pretty easy to do this at home.

Have on hand:

  • A banana or other fruit, sliced.
  • 2 ounces of breast milk or formula.
  • A blender.

Freeze the fruit.

Place frozen fruit in the blender.  Slowly add breast milk or formula.

Blend until the mix reaches a soft serve texture.

Serve immediately or store in freezer.

Note: no unhealthy additives.  Teething babies might like it.

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