Is Your Baby’s Food Dangerous?

Tagged with: baby, food, how to, money, recipes, shopping

Debbie Koenig

posted in Life & Home

Well, this is disturbing.

The Environmental Working Group, a non-profit focused on health and the environment, just released their eighth annual analysis of USDA and FDA data on pesticide residue in produce. In plain English: they’ve given us a new “Dirty Dozen” list of fruits and vegetables we should try to always buy organic, and a “Clean Fifteen” that are fine to buy cheaper conventionally. (There’s even a free app, so you can have the info at your fingertips while shopping!)

That’s not the disturbing part—EWG’s shopping guides are terrific, especially since I sure as heck can’t afford to buy everything organic. No, I didn’t feel a chill down my spine until I read their analysis of the USDA’s findings on jarred baby food.

For the first time ever, in 2010 the USDA tested about 190 samples each of green beans, pears, and sweet potatoes (which, excuse me?!?! They’ve never tested baby food before?). And the results are scary, when you think about how tiny babies are, and how little we really know about what continued exposure to pesticides can do to their developing bodies. According to EWG:

“Green beans prepared as baby food tested positive for five pesticides, among them, the organophosphate methamidiphos, which was found on 9.4 percent of samples and the organophosphate acephate, on 7.8 percent of samples. Based on our calculations, a 22-pound child eating one four-ounce serving of green beans sold as baby food with the maximum methamidiphos level found would consume 50 percent of EPA’s acute risk value, a measure of allowable risk. The risks would be higher if the beans were contaminated with a second organophosphate, acephate, which causes the same damages to the brain and nervous system. Lighter babies, those fed more than four ounces of green beans or those fed green beans with organophosphate residues daily would be at still greater risk.”

The takeaway: If you’ve got a wee’un who gobbles down green beans and you’re unlucky enough to buy a jar containing the levels the USDA found, your baby’s halfway to the danger zone.

Pear samples weren’t much better, and even included a carcinogenic pesticide that’s not approved for use on pears:

“Pears prepared as baby food showed significant and widespread contamination. Fully 92 percent of the pear samples tested positive for at least one pesticide residue. Some 26 percent of the samples were tainted with 5 or more pesticides. Disturbingly, the pesticide iprodione, which EPA has categorized as a probable human carcinogen, was detected on three baby food pear samples. Iprodione is not registered with EPA for use on pears. Its presence on this popular baby food constitutes a violation of FDA regulations and the federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.”

The only good news in all this: Baby food made from sweet potatoes, which are on EWG’s “Clean Fifteen” list, were pretty much pesticide-free.

Look, I realize the amounts of pesticides found were relatively small. And not in every sample. But when Harry was a baby, I didn’t want to take any chances. We just don’t know what the long-term effects are of some of these chemicals. Before you write in to tell me that your great-grandmother lived to be 104 and she ate green beans every day… The green beans she ate while growing up didn’t have this stuff sprayed on them! Methamidiphos was introduced in 1972. Makes me wonder what it did to my developing body.

I’ve already showed you how easy it is to make your own baby food. All the recipes in my cookbook tell you how to adapt what you’ve just cooked for yourself. If you’re not already feeding your baby homemade food, now’s a good time to start—or consider spending the extra money to buy prepared organic baby food. It’s a relatively short amount of time, the baby food stage, but every ounce he eats contributes to your baby’s development.

photo by greschoj, stock.xchng

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