Home » Misc » Baby food arsenic levels

Baby food arsenic levels


Homemade baby food contains as many toxic metals as store-bought options, report says

Consumer

By CBS New York Team

/ CBS/CNN

Report: Homemade baby foods could contain toxic heavy metals

Report: Homemade baby foods could contain toxic heavy metals 00:32

NEW YORK -- Making baby food at home with store-bought produce isn't going to reduce the amount of toxic heavy metals in the food your baby eats, according to a new report.

"We found no evidence to suggest that homemade baby foods made from store-bought produce are better than store-bought baby foods when it comes to heavy metal contamination," said the paper's coauthor Jane Houlihan, research director for Healthy Babies, Bright Futures.

An alliance of nonprofits, scientists and donors, HBBF, which produced the report, has a stated mission of reducing babies' exposures to neurotoxic chemicals.

Researchers tested 288 foods bought at stores and farmers markets across the United States -- including grains, fruits, vegetables, snacks, teething foods, and family items that babies eat, such as cereals and rice cakes -- for lead, arsenic, mercury and cadmium. Those heavy metals are among the World Health Organization's top 10 chemicals of concern for infants and children.

"Toxic metal exposure can be harmful to the developing brain. It's been linked with problems with learning, cognition, and behavior," according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Researchers also pored over data from 7,000 additional food tests reported in published studies and by the US Food and Drug Administration.

Results showed 94% of manufactured baby foods, family foods and homemade purees made from purchased raw foods contained detectable amounts of one or more heavy metals.

Lead was found in 90% of manufactured baby food bought by shoppers for the report and 80% of store-bought family food and homemade purees. There is no safe level of lead, according to the AAP.

Arsenic was found in 68% store-bought baby food and 72% of family food either purchased or prepared at home. Cadmium was found in 65% of purchased baby food and 60% of family foods, and mercury was in 7% of store-bought baby food and 10% of family foods. (The highest levels of mercury are found in seafood, which was not tested in this analysis.)

The new report is a follow-up to a November 2019 report in which Healthy Babies, Bright Futures tested 168 foods purchased from major baby food manufacturers. That analysis found 95% of store-bought baby food contained lead, 73% contained arsenic, 75% contained cadmium and 32% contained mercury. One-fourth of the foods tested that year contained all four heavy metals.

"After that report we saw so many people saying you can get around this problem by making your own baby food at home, so we decided to check," Houlihan said. "We suspected we'd find heavy metals in all kinds of food because they're ubiquitous contaminants in the environment.

"And that is exactly what we found -- heavy metals were in foods from every section of the store," Houlihan said. "What this says is that as the FDA is setting standards for heavy metals in baby food, they need to go beyond the baby food aisle."

What's a parent or caregiver to do? Feed baby with as many different types of foods as possible, said pediatrician Dr. Mark Corkins, chair of the Committee on Nutrition of the American Academy of Pediatrics. He was not involved in the study.

"If you spread foods out, and offer a wide variety of options, you'll have less toxicity," Corkins said. "And nutritionally that's always been the right thing to do to get the most micronutrients from the food you eat."

Does buying organic help?

The report found buying organic didn't lower heavy metal levels either, which was "not shocking or surprising," said Corkins, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and Le Bonheur Children's Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.

"It's the soil and water that's contaminated with arsenic and other heavy metals, so it doesn't matter if it's organic or traditional farming methods," Corkins said. That would apply to locally grown crops or even backyard gardens, if the soil had not been verified to be metal-free.

However, buying organic can help avoid other toxins the new report did not consider, such as herbicides and pesticides, said Dr. Leonardo Trasande, director of environmental pediatrics at NYU Langone Health. He was not involved in the study.

"There are other benefits to eating organic food, including a reduction in synthetic pesticides that are known to be as bad for babies, if not even more problematic," Trasande said.

"We've seen multiple studies show significant effects of synthetic pesticides on cognitive function in children as a result of prenatal exposure. We've seen images of the brain where certain parts are smaller that are crucial for higher order functioning after exposure," he added. "A simple step would simply be to say eat organic because regardless of anything we're talking about in this report, it's good for you."

Experts agree that battling toxins in baby foods is a job for government organizations who will need to work with growers, suppliers and manufacturers to institute regulations and safeguards. In the meantime, parents can make a difference.

"Making even one simple choice every day to lower a child's exposure will make a difference, whether that's staying away from rice-based snacks and serving a diced apple instead or choosing not to serve carrots and sweet potatoes every day," Houlihan said.

"With heavy metals and other toxins the risks add up over a lifetime," she added. "So even if some of these foods had been served to a child up to their second birthday, starting from there to lower exposure to toxins is going to add up. Every choice matters."

Least contaminated foods

Tested foods with low metal content contain one-eighth as much heavy metal contamination as foods with the highest levels, Houlihan said. These are foods that can be "eaten freely," the report suggested.

Fresh bananas, with heavy metal levels of 1.8 parts per billion, were the least contaminated of foods tested for the report. That's an "82-fold difference in average level of total heavy metals" from the most contaminated food, rice cakes, which tested at 147 parts per billion, according to the investigation.

After bananas, the least contaminated foods were grits, manufactured baby food meats, butternut squash, lamb, apples, pork, eggs, oranges and watermelon, in that order. Other foods with lower levels of contamination included green beans, peas, cucumbers, and soft or pureed home-cooked meats, the report found.

Infant formula made with lead-free tap water was recommended. Tap water that has been tested and is free of lead is always a good choice. Milk is also a good choice, but only for babies 12 months and older.

Some healthy lower-metal foods, such as yogurt, unsweetened applesauce, beans, cheese, hard-boiled eggs and grapes that have been cut lengthwise, were good choices for snacks for babies, according to the report.

Fresh and frozen fruit -- including those used in homemade purees -- were options as well. But don't use canned fruits if you can avoid it: "Tests find lead 30 times more often in canned fruit than in fresh and frozen fruit," the report stated.

Parents and caregivers can also lower their baby's exposure to heavy metals by making some smart substitutions, the report said.

Using a frozen banana for a teething baby instead of a rice-based teething biscuit or rice rusk could lower total intake of heavy metals by 95%, according to the report. Another suggested teething aid: peeled and chilled cucumber spears.

Avoid or limit these foods

The most heavily contaminated foods eaten by babies were all rice-based: "Rice cakes, rice puffs, crisped rice cereals and brown rice with no cooking water removed are heavily contaminated with inorganic arsenic, which is the more toxic form of arsenic," Houlihan said.

Arsenic is a natural element found in soil, water and air, and because rice is grown in water, it is especially good at absorbing inorganic arsenic. ("Inorganic" is a chemical term and has nothing to do with the method of farming.) Brown and wild rice are the worst offenders, as the bran contains the highest arsenic concentrations.

Prior research has shown that even low levels of inorganic arsenic exposure can impact a baby's neurodevelopment. A meta-analysis of studies on the topic found a 50% increase in arsenic levels in urine would be associated with a 0.4-point decrease in the IQ of children between the ages of 5 and 15.

Testing by HBBF found rice cakes were the most contaminated with inorganic arsenic, followed by crisped rice cereal, rice-based puffs and brown rice. The report recommended those foods be avoided entirely, unless the brown rice is cooked with extra water that is poured off before consumption (much like pasta). It's best to do that with all rice, including white and wild rice, the report said, as it can reduce arsenic levels by up to 60%.

Rice-based teething biscuits or rusks and white rice came next on the most contaminated list, the report said. White rice is milled to remove the outer layers, but experts say arsenic levels remain high enough to be concerning, especially if rice is a daily staple.

"Inorganic arsenic averaged 100 parts per billion in brown rice infant cereal and 74 parts per billion in white rice infant cereal in our tests," Houlihan said. "Baby food companies have taken brown rice cereal off the market because of its high arsenic levels."

Parents and caregivers can help by staying away from high-arsenic varieties of white rice grown in Arkansas, Louisiana, Texas, or simply "US" and instead choosing lower-arsenic basmati rice from California, India and Pakistan, as well as sushi rice from the US, the report said.

Serve these foods rarely

After rice-based foods, the analysis found the highest levels of heavy metals in raisins, non-rice teething crackers, granola bars with raisins and oat-ring cereals. But those were not the only foods of concern: Dried fruit, grape juice, arrowroot teething crackers and sunflower seed butter all contained high amounts of at least one toxic metal, according to the report.

"Many foods have a kind of unique, heavy metal profile," Houlihan explained. "For example, we saw very high levels of cadmium in things like spinach, leaf lettuce and peanut butter."

However, the human body doesn't absorb cadmium as easily as other heavy metals, and for that reason "it doesn't have as high a level of concern," Houlihan added.

"There's also not as much evidence that cadmium is neurotoxic to babies, or at least the body of evidence isn't there at the same levels as lead and arsenic," she said. "Lead and arsenic damage isn't reversible -- these are permanent impacts on IQ, learning ability and behavior, so it's a big deal. "

Root and tuber vegetables may have higher levels of heavy metals like lead and arsenic because they grow underground. In fact, the investigation found that nutritious baby favorites like carrots, sweet potatoes, squash and many types of potatoes did have concerning levels of heavy metals.

Even the same food could have varying levels of toxic metals, according to the report. For example, a shopper in Raleigh, North Carolina, bought a sweet potato with 60.7 parts per billion of lead -- 10 times more than the store-bought sweet potato puree she purchased. A Chicago shopper purchased a fresh carrot with eight times more arsenic than the premade carrot baby food she took home, the investigation found.

Yet shoppers in Tennessee and California found the opposite -- their fresh produce had minimal levels of heavy metals compared with the manufactured baby food brands they bought.

"As a parent, you don't know what you're picking up out of the produce bin," Houlihan said. "Is it elevated because of the cultivar -- the particular type of sweet potato or carrot? Or is it elevated because it's grown in an area where the soil has naturally high levels of lead?

Answering these questions will be the responsibility of government regulators and industry, Houlihan said. The FDA has a Closer to Zero campaign, for example, which could take on the issue.

CNN reached out to the FDA for comment but didn't immediately received a response.

"And remember, if you're protecting the basic ingredients that parents are using to make food at home, you're not only protecting babies and toddlers, you're protecting pregnant women as well. Babies in utero are particularly vulnerable to toxins while the brain is growing at such a rapid pace."

With no way of knowing levels of toxic metals in the soil where produce is grown, parents and caregivers need to add one more step to their efforts to avoid these substances, Houlihan suggested. In addition to mixing up the variety of foods and not serving the same options each day, parents can "choose different brands or varieties of foods or shop in different stores from week to week to avoid choosing a high-metal source regularly. "

CBS New York Team

The CBS New York team is a group of experienced journalists who bring you the content on CBSNewYork.com.

Twitter Facebook Instagram

First published on August 11, 2022 / 6:16 PM

© 2022 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. CNN contributed to this report.

Thanks for reading CBS NEWS.

Create your free account or log in
for more features.

Please enter email address to continue

Please enter valid email address to continue

Why are there dangerous levels of arsenic and lead in American baby food? | Adrienne Matei

No parent would intentionally feed their baby arsenic. Yet a disturbing number of parents may be unknowingly doing just that.

An investigation by the US Congress earlier this year found that commercial baby foods sold under the brands Gerber, Beech-Nut, Earth’s Best Organic and HappyBABY are tainted with up to 91 times more inorganic arsenic, 117 times more lead, and 69 times more cadmium than the Food and Drug Administration’s maximum allowable levels in bottled water. (The current FDA standard recommends inorganic arsenic in baby food not exceed 100 parts per billion – 10 times its recommended limit for bottled water – and the standard is not legally binding.) Of the four, only HappyBABY’s parent company, Nurture, routinely tested its products for mercury – which it found.

Then there’s this: three other companies – Walmart, which sells baby food through its brand Parent’s Choice; Campbell, which owned Plum Organic at the time of the investigation; and Sprout Organic Food – “refused to cooperate” with the investigation. The House subcommittee on economic and consumer policy, which released its findings in February, said it was “greatly concerned” that those companies’ “lack of cooperation might be obscuring the presence of even higher levels of toxic heavy metals in their baby food products than their competitors’ products”. (Walmart and Campbell have disputed Congress’s assertion that they did not cooperate with the investigation.)

The investigative report also notes that in August 2019 the Trump administration received and ignored an industry presentation to federal regulators revealing increased risks of toxic heavy metals in baby foods. Under Biden, the FDA has taken some modest steps toward acknowledging this alarming public health issue; in February the agency issued a statement saying that, since 2011, “manufacturers have made significant progress in reducing arsenic in infant rice cereal products.”

Don’t find that statement particularly reassuring? Neither did representative Raja Krishnamoorthi, chairman of the subcommittee that released the report. “There’s no timeline and there’s no clear commitment to removing toxic heavy metals from baby food,” Krishnamoorthi told the Washington Post in March. “And frankly, I’m concerned about their tone. I don’t see a sense of urgency. Perhaps they aren’t understanding the level of outrage among parents. ”

Outrage, in this circumstance, is justified. Both these major consumer brands and the FDA seem unable or unwilling to protect not just adult consumers, but vulnerable infants – who absorb metals more readily than adults and consume more food relative to their body weight. While the FDA maintains that their testing shows that children are not at an immediate health risk from exposure to toxic elements at the levels found in baby foods, we know that arsenic is a carcinogen and that it can impair neurodevelopment in children even at low levels. Arsenic is also associated with lung disease, heart attacks and kidney failure. Similarly, lead is known to alter brain development in children, reducing attention span and intelligence and increasing the likelihood of antisocial behavior. Cadmium is linked to kidney and gastrointestinal diseases, DNA impairment, cancer, osteoporosis and immune system deficiencies.

There’s no timeline and there’s no clear commitment to removing toxic heavy metals from baby food. I don’t see a sense of urgency. Perhaps they aren’t understanding the level of outrage among parents
Raja Krishnamoorthi

Avoiding rice altogether is one way to protect your infant from heavy metal exposure. Rice is a popular ingredient in many baby foods, such as cereals and formulas, due to the fact it is easy to digest, unlikely to produce an allergic reaction, and often fortified with iron. Because it is grown in water, however, rice absorbs up to 10 times more inorganic arsenic from soil minerals than other crops. While some heavy metals are naturally occurring, manmade products such as chemical fertilizers, pesticides and untreated wastewater are responsible for large concentrations of heavy metals in agricultural sites, where they are absorbed by crops.

And brown rice, in case you were curious, contains even more arsenic than white, since some heavy metals are removed from white rice in the milling process; other grain products, like oat or wheat-based cereals, have been found to contain far lower levels of arsenic, making them altogether safer alternatives to rice.

This month, Beech-Nut voluntarily recalled an infant cereal containing higher than permissible levels of arsenic, and announced it would no longer sell baby rice cereal at all. “To our knowledge, this is the first recall of infant rice cereal due to high arsenic levels,” Jane Houlihan, research director for the advocacy group Healthy Babies Bright Futures, told CNN. Earth’s Best has also moved to restrict the use of brown rice in its baby foods.

We need the FDA to enforce binding limitations on toxins in all baby foods. In April, the administration released Closer to Zero, an action plan to reduce toxic elements in food over time; the agency must be held accountable to those commitments. In April, the New York attorney general, Letitia James, also launched a probe to determine if baby foods sold in the state contain arsenic levels exceeding the legal maximum – a move more states should emulate to keep pressure on manufacturers.

And consumers should demand that brands be more transparent: disclosing the presence and levels of contaminants on baby food packaging, and pulling rice products from shelves until they are safe. These companies must take action, if only for their own self-interest; there are some things parents will not forgive and forget.

Heavy metals in baby food: how to feed babies safely?

Lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic and other toxic substances have been found in some US brands of baby food. How they ended up there, what consequences the use of such products can lead to, and how safe baby food is on the shelves of Russian stores, Elena Miroshnik, head of the pediatric department No.

- Have you ever heard mothers complain about the products of these manufacturers and the quality of ready-made baby food?

Elena Miroshnik: Indeed, according to the report of the House of Representatives, hazardous substances were found in some brands. I am constantly faced with the question of what baby food is best for babies, which brands can be trusted, and whether the food is safe. What is the best way to feed a child - food that is packaged in jars, or what is cooked with your own hands. nine0005

- No complaints so far?

Elena Miroshnik: Complaints related to the content of heavy metals can only be received if the parents took the can of baby food to the laboratory and the analysis was carried out there. The content of these substances does not affect the taste in any way.

- The content of arsenic in some products is exceeded by 91 times, and cadmium and lead by 177 times. Is this even possible? What needs to be done with the products to get such numbers? nine0008

Elena Miroshnik: Hypothetically, this is possible. As a rule, this may be due to contamination of the soil in which certain products were grown. Most experts are inclined to think that such a situation occurred in the United States.

- Isn't the fruit used in baby food checked before preparation?

Elena Miroshnik: Normally, there must be strict quality control - all this goes through multi-level checks: laboratory control, organoleptic properties of the product are evaluated. At what stage the failure occurred, it is difficult to say. But it must be mentioned that in 2019In the same year, a report from one of the organizations was also published, according to which the authors randomly took banks in supermarkets. 95% of the samples were found to be of poor quality. At some stages, failures occur. It is very difficult to say what stage it is - growing products, cooking. We are not immune from this, both in baby food and in any other.

- Do imported and Russian baby food differ in quality?

Elena Miroshnik: The choice always remains with the parents, the reasons may be different: either people are simply sure that imported food is much better than Russian, someone is guided by the pricing policy. We, pediatricians, try never to give hard recommendations, not to impose our opinion. I believe that there are high-quality Russian-made products, and there are wonderful high-quality imported products. nine0005

- How could heavy metals affect children's health?

Elena Miroshnik: Multiple excess of heavy metals in food is indeed very dangerous, especially for children under two years old. There can be very serious consequences, usually neurological disorders. There are reports that the gradual accumulation of heavy metals can lead to various pathologies up to autism, a decrease in the level of intelligence. They can also lead to oncological diseases, a decrease in the level of immunity, and allergies. nine0005

- Does the reaction to a high concentration of such substances appear immediately?

Elena Miroshnik: As a rule, such substances are dangerous because their excess is not immediately noticeable. This does not affect the properties of the product in any way, but they have a cumulative effect and have an unpleasant effect on health: the immune system, digestive organs, allergization.

- How often can a child be given food that is sold in a store in the Baby Food section? nine0008

Elena Miroshnik: Everything is also individual. As a rule, it depends on the preferences in the family. As part of everyday life, mothers often use ready-made products - it's convenient, fast. Is it helpful? Probably not always, although parents often turn to them about food allergies, food intolerances, and we understand that this is not entirely related to the product, but to some substances that this product is processed with.

I always recommend that my patients look for trusted places to buy food for all family members. nine0005

- Is it possible to protect a child from dangerous substances from food in modern conditions?

Elena Miroshnik: In modern conditions, this is a difficult task, from the category of impossible, only if you constantly use the services of laboratories. Many people buy analyzers that measure the level of pesticides - all this makes some sense, but the main recommendation for parents is to look for proven places, buy products in stores, supermarkets, be sure to look at the expiration date. This does not always protect the consumer from buying low-quality goods, but it gives at least some kind of guarantee. nine0005

When it comes to preparing food for your child, where the food was bought is of great importance. Were these spontaneous markets or proven stores that have official status, documents and certain quality standards.

In baby food Gerber and Nurture Inc. found heavy metals

Experts from the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy of the US House of Representatives found dangerous levels of toxic metals in the baby food of several American brands. CNN writes about the progress of the investigation. nine0005

  • Testing found high levels of substances such as arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury in baby products. These heavy toxic metals pose a serious health hazard to children.
  • Products from Gerber, Nurture Inc., Hain Celestial Group and Beech-Nutrition.
  • Manufacturers are accused of knowingly selling these unlabeled products to parents who are unaware of the risks they are putting their children at. nine0088
  • Experts and the World Health Organization also draw attention to the fact that exposure to these metals can lead to a decrease in intelligence, inhibition of the neurological development of infants and impaired brain function.

US baby food market situation

According to the 2019 Healthy Babies Bright Futures (HBBF) report, 95% of baby food samples tested contain at least one of four substances: arsenic, mercury, cadmium or lead. nine0005

  • Experts tested 168 baby food brands. 25% of them contained all four substances at once.
  • The researchers specifically recommended avoiding rice-based foods, as well as carrots, sweet potatoes, and fruit juices.
  • Instead, the scientists recommended steaming vegetables for children, feeding them cereals, fruits for breakfast, and using a frozen banana or chilled cucumber to relieve teething pain. nine0088

In Russia

, New Zealand (1), Russia (4), Finland (1), Switzerland (1) and Estonia (1), which are sold in Russia.