Toxic-Free Tuesday: Toxic Baby Food?

This article sent a wide range of emotions through me when I saw it a few days back. I mean how on earth would this have ever been OK? Our precious babies depend on us for EVERYTHING and we depend on these companies to provide us with quality goods and products to help us care for our babies.

We’ve all read or heard about all of the nasty stuff in our foods and we all know how important it is to check the ingredients but many of us would probably just assume that baby food would be SAFE… the fact that these companies are doing this and putting our children’s lives in danger really makes me MAD.

Here is just a little from the article:

[A new investigation by the nonprofit healthy babies bright future reveals in a study 95% of baby foods tested contain toxic chemicals that can lower IQ.

The study found arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury in dozens of the 168 baby food products tested, one in four baby foods contained all four metals.]

Many of the well-known brands like Gerber, Beech-Nut, Earth’s Best, Parents Choice and Enfamil were tested in this study and ONLY 9 items out of the 168 tested were found to have NO TOXIC METALS!

True Story: I once found rodent hair in a jar of baby food… I contacted the (well-known) company and after testing the food they sent me vouchers for a year’s supply of baby food! I gave most of the vouchers away as I didn’t really trust the store-bought food anymore.

What can we do?

A sad part about this is that many families rely on these companies to provide safe products for them and many state programs like WIC even give vouchers for parents to purchase these foods… why aren’t there stricter regulations?

Throw it out

If I still had littles I would immediately throw out all of the baby food NOW… but I know this is not an option for many people.

Make your voice known

Another option that I believe everyone should do is to let these companies know that this is not OK! Write to the companies, talk to your government leaders, and let EVERYONE know how wrong this is! They say that the squeaky wheel gets the most grease so maybe everyone needs to start squeaking a bit because this is NONSENSE!

Make your own

You can always do like your grandparents did… make your own baby food. Many items can be prepared ahead of time and then frozen to help with time restraints. For me, I think this would be the best option, especially if you have your own garden or you have access to organic veggies.

Many baby foods can be made right along with whatever you are eating as long as you are careful about the seasonings, sizes, and textures. I know my kids would often eat right off my own plate as I would smash the veggies with my fingers and feed them whatever I was eating… they also seemed to enjoy it more than anything they ate from a jar. I refused to feed them any of the meat from jars because the smell was horrid!

You can find a variety of glass baby food containers on Amazon if you choose to go this route.

There are many recipes on Pinterest for homemade baby food and I also found these articles that you may find helpful:

If you can’t make your own then don’t beat yourself up… just do your research and look for products that are organic to lessen the chance that the foods may have been exposed to harmful pesticides.