How to Avoid Heavy Metals in Baby Food: Which Brands are Safe, Plus Tips for Parents

All parents want the best for their babies. When infants begin to eat solid foods, important nutrients and minerals help their brains develop and flourish. On February 4, 2021, a subcommittee of the U.S. Congress released a report describing how toxic heavy metals - like arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury - are found in some baby foods. This is a concern because even small amounts of these metals can affect a child's growing brain.

The FDA is working to remove these metals from baby food products. In the meantime, avoiding certain baby foods can keep babies safe from heavy metals. Here's what you should know about metals in baby foods and how to choose safe foods for your baby.

What happens if your baby eats food with heavy metals?

Heavy metals - like lead, mercury and arsenic - can have toxic effects, even in low levels.

Children's brains are still developing. This makes them more vulnerable to damage from toxic heavy metals. Also, children are smaller than adults. So, the same amount of heavy-metal exposure has a greater effect on a child than on an adult.

Studies show that children who are exposed to heavy metals are at higher risk of developing:

• Learning and behavior difficulties

• ADHD (attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder)

• Autistic behaviors

• Lower IQ scores

How do I know if my baby is ingesting heavy metals?

A blood test can show whether your child has been exposed to lead. All children should be tested for lead poisoning before their third birthday. Children living in areas where there's a lot of lead paint receive testing more than once.

Special blood tests can show whether a child has a high level of mercury or other heavy metals. But these tests are only offered when a child has a major exposure to heavy metals. Children don't need to be routinely checked for other heavy metals. Some labs claim to offer heavy metal testing from hair and blood samples. But these testing facilities aren't always regulated. So, it's not clear if these results are accurate.

How do heavy metals get into the food supply?

Heavy metals are naturally found in soil and water all over the world. They've always been there.

But there's been an increase in heavy metals deposits over time because of air and water pollution. These metals get into the food supply because, as plants grow, they absorb these metals from the soil and water.

How much heavy metal contamination ends up in the food supply depends on several factors. For example:

• Some plants, like rice, soak up more heavy metals as part of their growing process.

• Some areas of the world have more heavy metals in the soil than other areas. So, food that's grown in this soil will contain more heavy metals.

• Some vitamin premixes, spices, and enzymes contain heavy metals. These things get added to food and, in turn, contaminate food with heavy metals.

Which baby foods have heavy metals in them?

When Congress began to investigate heavy metals in baby foods in 2019, they asked seven major baby food companies to submit data to their subcommittee. These companies included:

• Beech-Nut

• Plum Organics (Campbell Soup Company)

• Gerber

• Earth's Best (Hain Celestial)

• Happy Baby (Nurture)

• Sprout

• Parent's Choice (Walmart)

But only four of these companies (Beech-Nut, Gerber, Earth's Best, and Happy Baby) provided data. These companies gave Congress information about how they tested their foods for heavy metals, whether they tested ingredients or the finished product, and what limits they set for testing.

Here's what the data from these four companies showed:

• Infant rice cereal had high levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.

• Rice-based snacks contained arsenic, lead, and cadmium.

• Grape and apple juice contained lead.

• Apple and other fruit juices contained arsenic.

• Carrots and sweet potatoes contained cadmium and lead.

Beech-Nut later recalled some of its rice cereal in June 2021. The company also decided to stop making single-grain rice cereal products.

Once the initial report became public, the remaining three companies began providing some data to Congress. Another report was issued on September 29, 2021, which again showed high levels of heavy metals in baby foods from these companies.

A follow-up report published in 2023 showed that, overall, there were lower levels of heavy metals in baby foods and products made by:

• Beech-Nut

• Gerber

• Earth's Best

• Happy Baby

• Baby Mum-Mum

But the report was quick to point out that certain brands made more improvements than others. It also noted that products made with rice and sweet potatoes still contained too much heavy metal.

Are organic baby food brands any safer?

Many of the baby foods tested for the 2021 congressional report came from companies that listed their foods or ingredients as "organic." While organic products have fewer pesticides, they can still contain these heavy metals. What matters more is where the crops are grown, since heavy metal comes from soil. Also, organic baby foods are often made from brown rice. Brown rice naturally has higher levels of arsenic than other types of rice.

Which baby food brands are heavy-metal safe?

Some baby food companies are working on eliminating more heavy metals from their products. But right now, there's no baby food company that has heavy metal-free products.

The Clean Label Project is a nonprofit organization that works to identify companies that have baby foods containing lower levels of heavy metals. They've awarded several baby food brands higher-purity ratings based on levels of heavy metals, pesticides, and plastics in their products.

But a recent review from the Bloomberg Law Center found that many baby foods still contain higher-than-recommended levels of toxic heavy metals - even from some companies with higher ratings from the Clean Label Project.

To address the problem, the FDA developed the action plan Closer to Zero. But any changes will take several years to implement. Until then, experts recommend that parents take steps to limit babies' exposure to heavy metals in baby foods.

How can you limit your baby's exposure to heavy metals?

The good news is that there are easy switches you can make to decrease the amount of heavy metals your baby is exposed to. Studies show that making a few simple changes can decrease the amount of heavy metals babies are exposed to by 80%.

Make your own purees

You can create baby food by making a puree of your table foods. But making your food doesn't guarantee that your child won't be exposed to heavy metals. This is because heavy metals can be found in the entire food chain, not just baby foods. The best solution is to limit repeated exposure to the same foods by offering a wide variety of fruits and vegetables.

Avoid white and brown rice, rice-based snacks, and rice flour

Rice absorbs more arsenic as it grows compared to other grains, like oats, wheat, and bran. Limiting how much rice a baby eats will decrease exposure to arsenic.

Here are some simple switches parents can try:

• Use a cold banana or chilled cucumber instead of rice-based teethers.

• Use oatmeal, quinoa, or barley-based infant cereal instead of rice cereal.

• Choose a rice that has lower natural arsenic content, like basmati and sushi rice.

• Avoid rice-based snacks, like puffs. Instead, try yogurts, cheeses, or soft fruits, like applesauce, peaches, and bananas.

Limit carrots and sweet potatoes

Carrots and sweet potatoes are root vegetables that tend to absorb more heavy metals. But they provide a good source of nutrients and fiber. You don't need to eliminate them entirely from your child's diet.

Instead, offer a good mix of other fruits and veggies during the day. And watch for baby foods with carrots and sweet potatoes combined with purees, including snack pouches that contain these root vegetables in their ingredients.

Offer water instead of juice

Kids like juice because it tastes good! But Consumer Reports found that many commercial juices also had arsenic, lead, and mercury.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that children avoid juice for their first year of life because the high sugar content adds unnecessary calories and leads to more cavities. The heavy metals that can be found in juices are another reason to follow this recommendation.

Read labels

Check food labels for rice or rice flour and added ingredients, like sweet potatoes. Avoid feeding your child a diet that contains too many of these items. Remember that these ingredients might not be listed as the first ingredient, so you may have to read through numerous ingredients.

Have your water tested

The water supply is carefully tested for heavy metals. But heavy metals can get into your water as it enters the plumbing in your house, especially if your plumbing is old. Get your water tested for lead and heavy metals through an EPA-approved testing facility.

If your water comes from a private well, you'll need to make sure that your water quality is checked regularly.

Can you flush heavy metals out of your baby's system?

No, there's no way to flush heavy metals out of your baby's system. Heavy metals get absorbed by the body's organs and bones. It takes time for heavy metals to move out of the body. There's no quick method to remove heavy metals once they enter the body.

There's no evidence that vitamins and other natural remedies can speed up the process. Medications, called chelators, can help if someone has severe heavy metal poisoning. These medications can lead to serious side effects. That's why they're only given when someone is very sick.