Baby Food Contains High Levels of Lead and Other Heavy Metals

When I woke up to the news that baby food contains high levels of lead and other heavy metals, I had a number of emotions. Mostly, I was angry. I am angry that companies wouldn’t adhere to higher standards. I was also angry with myself that I didn’t do more homemade baby food when my kids were little.

While this Insider article caught my attention today, when I started to research, I realized there have been articles written in the past with the warnings about heavy metals in baby food, but I had never seen them.

I figured, if I haven’t seen them, maybe you haven’t either, so I wanted to help spread the word.

Baby Food Contains High Levels of Lead and Other Heavy Metals

While I want to get into the meat of what I learned today, I also want to share a bit of my story as it relates to heavy metal and share a solution if you are concerned about exposure to heavy metals in your child’s body.

I’ll start with some of the facts that I learned today.

According to this Congressional Report from February 4, 2021, “commercial baby foods are tainted with significant levels of toxic heavy metals, including arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.”

This isn’t new news, apparently. In November of 2019, CNN reported, “Tests of 168 baby foods from major manufacturers in the US found 95% contained lead, 73% contained arsenic, 75% contained cadmium and 32% contained mercury. One fourth of the foods contained all four heavy metals.”

According to Insider, baby foods are held to a much lower standard than other food items. It was found that baby food contained 177 times more lead than what is allowed in our bottled water.

CNN also reported that, “one in five baby foods tested had over 10 times the 1-ppb limit of lead endorsed by public health advocates, although experts agree that no level of lead is safe.”

The Congressional Report reads, “Internal company standards permit dangerously high levels of toxic heavy metals, and documents revealed that the manufacturers have often sold foods that exceeded those levels.”

You can read the articles mentioned to get more details on the reports and findings.

What Brands of Baby Food Contains High Levels of Lead and Other Heavy Metals?

For a full report of which metals were in which brands, please visit the Congressional Report. The Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy reached out to seven of the largest baby food companies to ask for internal documents and test.

Four of the 7 companies were willing to cooperate and release their documents.

The three companies that WOULD NOT release there documents were:

Walmart
Campbell
Sprout Organic Foods.

According to Insider, Walmart said they were trying to cooperate but never heard back from the sub-committee in 2019 after initial conversations.

The baby foods were tested for arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury. All the participating baby foods were found to have some or all of these metals in their product. The total breakdown is in the Congressional Report.

Here are the baby food manufactures that participated:

Nurture, Inc. (Nurture), which sells Happy Family Organics, including baby food products under the brand name HappyBABY
Beech-Nut Nutrition Company (Beech-Nut)
Hain Celestial Group, Inc. (Hain), which sells baby food products under the brandname Earth’s Best Organic
Gerber

How do Heavy Metals Impact Children?

Metals can be found in our environment and food in natural levels that don’t seem to be harmful to humans. However, exposure to heavy metals that are beyond safe levels can cause damage.

According to PubMed.gov, “The element’s harmful consequences on children health include mental retardation, neurocognitive disorders, behavioral disorders, respiratory problems, cancer and cardiovascular diseases.”

Insider said, “Exposure to heavy metals in childhood is linked to permanent dips in IQ, an increased risk of future criminal activity, and damaged long-term brain function.”

There has been the question as to whether heavy metals have a link to autism. Medical News Today explores that more. The study sited showed that kids with autism had higher levels of lead throughout their development. It could be that the autistic body doesn’t process the lead as efficiently as others or exposure to lead could be linked to developing autism.

The fact that baby foods contains high levels of lead and other heavy metals is frightening. Baby food manufacturers must be held to a higher standard. Our children’s health is at risk.

What’s the Solution Exposure Heavy Metals

If you are concerned about your child’s exposure to heavy metals, please seek out a medical provider that can properly test for heavy metals in the body. Do not take medicine or supplements without seeking expert advice.

I have found a naturopath that has a medical background as well. I love the balance found between the medical and natural world. My personal belief is that this kind of balance is the best way to approach health care.

I want to share our story and a product we found to help us on our journey. Please ask your health care provider if this might be a good solution for your child.

My daughter suffers from headaches and migraines. In talking with a friend, she relayed her story of her son having seizures. They went to a more naturopathic doctor to explore heavy metal exposure. Indeed, he tested high in exposure to metals.

She shared with me the product they used to reduce seizures.

We also explored this route with my daughter and ended up using the same heavy metal detox tonic to try and reduce her headaches, which it did. Again, please consult someone and ask them about this product before using.

Ask your medical provider or naturopath about the use of the Bioray NEF natural detox formula – heavy metal detox tonic. I have found it only on iherb. I am not being paid for this promotion, and I’m not working with Bioray or iherb. My goal is to simply share what has worked for us. This along with chiropractic care has made a big difference in my daughter’s quality of life.

If you are a mom with little ones who are only eating soft foods, I would encourage you to do what I didn’t do. Make your own homemade baby food. This baby food maker from Amazon has great reviews (affiliate link). See it here:

If this frustrates you as it frustrates me, I also encourage you to use your voice. Spread the word. Contact the companies. We can enforce a higher standard for what is allowed in our baby food products.