How to avoid heavy metals in your baby's food (2024)

All food, including baby food, contains some heavy metals. Metals are naturally present in water, soil, and air, but also enter our food through pesticides and pollution.

Several reportshave highlightedunsafe levels of toxic heavy metals – arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury – found in store-bought baby food (including in organic brands).A congressional report found that some of America's biggest baby food manufacturers have been selling food with high levels of these metals.

In 2019, the nonprofit Healthy Babies Bright Futures analyzed 168 baby foodsOpens a new window and found toxic metals in 95 percent of them. A year earlier, Consumer Reportstested 50 packaged baby and toddler foodsOpens a new window for cadmium, mercury, arsenic, andlead and found alarming results. All of the products contained measurable amounts of at least one heavy metal, about two-thirds had "worrisome" levels of these metals, and15 posed a potential health risk if eaten once a day.

In 2022,Healthy Babies Bright FuturesOpens a new window tested homemade baby food to see if it's safer than store-bought. Sadly, the group discovered that 94 percent of homemade baby food was contaminated with one or more of the four toxic heavy metals. Levels of heavy metals varied significantly by the type of food, not by how it was made.

Excessive consumption ofheavy metals can cause health problems and damage a child's developing brain – and there's no easy way for parents to learn what may be in the baby food they buy or make. Public health experts have called on the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to set safestandards for baby foods and provide more transparent labels. Currently, the FDAdoesn't regulate the amount of heavy metals in most baby foods.

How to avoid heavy metals in baby food

While it'simpossibleto completely avoid heavy metals lurking in your baby's meals and snacks, you can take steps tolower your baby’s risk of getting too many in their diet:

• Continue toserve a wide variety of foods that are rich in essential nutrients. Feeding your child a variety of healthy foods helps provide balanced nutrition and may help limit the risk of long-term exposure to heavy metal. Start solids with pureed veggies, fruits, or meats rather than baby cereal. Or, skip purees and trybaby-led weaning.
• Avoidrice cerealsand snacks made with rice flour, since rice absorbs about 10 times more arsenic than other grains. According toHealthy Babies Bright Futures,rice cakes, crisped rice cereal, and rice puffs are the most contaminated foods. Rice milk and brown rice syrup, which is used to sweeten some foods, is also recommended against.
• Instead of rice, opt for whole grains such as oats, barley, farro, bulgar, and quinoa. When making rice for your family, keep in mind that white basmati and sushi rice has lower levels of arsenic than brown rice. Rinse your rice before you cook it, and consider cooking it in extra water and draining the excess.
• Give your child whole foods as much as possible, rather thanprocessed snacks. Foods that are low in heavy metals include: Apples, unsweetened applesauce, avocados, bananas, barley with diced vegetables, beans, cheese, grapes, hard-boiled eggs, peaches, strawberries, and yogurt. (Just make sure to cut food into small pieces to avoid choking hazards.)
• Breastfeed if possible.Breastfeedingrather than formula feedingcan help reduce exposure to metals.
• If you use tap water to prepare infant formula or cereals, consider having your home's water tested for lead. Metals can get into tap water, especially if it comes from a well or passes through older pipes. If you're concerned about your water, use bottled water to make your baby's bottles and food. (The FDA limits heavy metals in bottled water.)
• Choose low-mercury fish. Fish is packed with beneficial nutrients, and babies can eat fish soon after they start solids. But you'll want to avoid fish that are high inmethylmercury, such as bigeye tuna, king mackerel, marlin, swordfish, and tilefish. Better fish choices include salmon, cod, tilapia, and whitefish.
• Avoid fruit juice. Many brands of apple and grape juice contain inorganic arsenic and lead. If you give your child juice, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than 4 ounces a day for 1- to 3-year-olds, and no juice at all for infants.
• Limit carrots and sweet potatoes, which contain more heavy metals than other veggies because they grow in the ground. Always wash and peel them before serving.Consumer Reports found that sweet potatoes were particularly likely to have high levels of heavy metals.Healthy Babies Bright Futures also recommends limiting spinach and cantaloupe.

Should I make baby food instead of buying it?

Heavy metals are in the producewe buy, so making homemade baby foodwon't help you avoid them in your baby's diet. But because heavy metals can also get into baby food from food manufacturing and packaging,making your own baby foodmay help reduce your baby's exposure.

The AAP cautions that whether you're making baby food or buying it at the store, offering a variety of foods is key to reducing the risk of toxic metals in your child's food.

You can make all or part of your baby's food by pureeing fruits, vegetables, grains, and other foods with a little breast milk, formula, or water to the desired consistency. You can also puree a little of what the rest of the family is eating if it doesn't contain added sugars or too much sodium.

It's unlikely but not impossible. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, the levels of heavy metals found in baby foods are a relatively small part of a child's overall toxic metal exposure risk. But it's best to minimize kids' exposure to heavy metals from all sources.

"Heavy metal exposure can be harmful to the developing brain. It's been linked with problems with learning, cognition, and behavior," says the AAP. Because babies' brains arerapidly growing, and their bodies are small, exposure to heavy metals is especially dangerous.

It's not time to panic about your child's food, however.

"A child's exposure to these heavy metals through baby food is likely to be negligible and not to have a significant adverse impact on their health," saidpediatrician Dawn Rosenberg, a member of the BabyCenter Advisory Board.

"Still, this is an important risk that can be additive, and now that we know about these toxic metals in our foods, we need to minimize future exposure as much as possible," saidDr. Rosenberg."It's imperative that our government regulates and sets rigorous safety standards for baby food."

Dr. Rosenberg encourages parents to rely less on packaged purees and snacks. "Luckily, our guidance for feeding babies solid foods has changed dramatically over the past decades," she said. "Families can be more flexible with baby feeding, offering non-pureed soft foods and adding flavors and spices."

Should I give my child organic baby food?

Some parents prefer organic baby food because they want to give their baby food that's free of pesticides and other chemicals. This is an issue you'll have to decide based on what's best for your family.But keep in mind that organic foodsare as likely to containheavy metals as conventional foods.

You might consider buying organic varieties of the so-called "dirty dozenOpens a new window." These are the fruits and vegetables that typically contain the highest levels of pesticides, according to The Environmental Working Group, the environmental health nonprofit that updates the list every year.

Whatever you decide, don't skimp on fruits and veggies in an effort to reduce your baby's exposure to heavy metals or pesticides. Fruits and vegetables are an excellent source of important nutrients, including potassium, folate, fiber, vitamin A, vitamin C, and vitamin K. Plus, studies suggest that babies who don't get a lot of fruits and veggies in their diet are less likely to eat them later.

How canI choose safe baby food?

If you're concerned about heavy metals in your baby's food, check outThe Clean Label Project. This national nonprofit tests baby foods for heavy metals and publishes a list of best and worst baby food productsOpens a new window.

Healthy Babies Bright Futures also offers a tip sheet for parents to reduce babies' exposure to heavy metalsOpens a new window in their diet.

According to the group, foods low in heavy metals include fruit (fresh, frozen, and in baby food); vegetables like green beans, peas, and butternut squash; and proteins like meats, eggs, and beans. The least-contaminated foods for babies, they say, are:

• bananas
• grits
• baby food meat brands
• butternut squash
• lamb
• apples
• pork
• eggs
• oranges
• watermelon

The most-contaminated foods for babies, according to Healthy Babies Bright Futures, are:

• rice cakes
• crisped rice cereal
• rice-based puffs
• brown rice
• rice-based teething biscuits
• white rice
• raisins
• non-rice teething crackers
• granola bars with raisins
• oat-ring cereal