This topic has been hitting the news headlines this week and so many parents are freaking out. It is a scary topic and the headlines are enough to really make you nervous and start off some serious mom guilt. I wanted to share some information with you to provide some reassurance and help support you as you look at what you are feeding your child.
News Report published by WebMD - This article like many that were all over websites/social media and the evening news definitely is alarming to parents. This specific article talks about how infant rice cereal is the only baby food that has a legal limit on the amount of arsenic that can be in that product. This is because we have known that arsenic levels are high in rice. That is not new information. Arsenic naturally ends up in the soil/water from minerals in the earth. That is how rice grains get higher levels of arsenic from getting into the roots of these plants and then is stored in the grain (article from No Meat Athlete about this). Now that doesn’t mean you have to stop eating rice. Choose the rice with lower amounts of arsenic like Thai jasmine or Indian basmati. Then you need to wash your rice, prior to cooking until the water runs clear. This can decrease arsenic levels by 25-30% (from this article in the Chicago Tribune). As you can see, when you are aware of this information you can make informed choices.
I think that is one of the most shocking things for families is that no one realized that our food supply isn’t as “clean” as we like to think it is. Lots of our foods have other contaminants in them that we don’t normally think about. This doesn’t lessen the concerning findings brought up by the US House of Representatives. I just wanted to point out, that this isn’t brand new information. We do need to work harder to hold food companies accountable and work to find better alternatives and even ways to process these foods.
The US House of Representatives Staff Report - Came out on 3/4/21 talking about specifically arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury in baby foods. These are heavy metals and depending on how much you consume of these metals they can be toxic. Baby food brands were named and it covered all the popular brands you will find on store shelves. The recommendations this committee made were to require baby food manufacturers to have products tested for these heavy metals, report those levels on the food label and then work to find substitutes for these tainted ingredients. This committee also asked that the FDA set maximum levels for toxic heavy metals permitted in baby foods. I think that these are great recommendations and should definitely be prioritized.
Have been covering our NICU Follow Up Clinic and I have received several phone calls from parents really concerned about these findings. That is one reason why I wanted to take a moment and share some of this information with you. Plus, I also wanted to highlight another RD who has a great blog post on this topic - Check out Kids Eat in Color and her post on Heavy Metals in Baby Foods.
In the end, if you have fed your child baby food and infant cereal, I wouldn’t freak out. The biggest key and take and away from this is remembering that variety is key. Providing different foods is important to help limit exposure to these potentially contaminated foods.