Do homemade baby foods have lower heavy metal content than store-bought brands?
To answer this question, Healthy Babies Bright Futures conducted a research study. As part of this study, our colleagues at Brooks Applied Labs, LLC tested 288 baby food samples for arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.
The organization concluded that homemade and store-bought baby foods have similar levels of heavy metals, with 94% of all foods tested containing detectable amounts of heavy metals.
The results also indicate that heavy metal levels varied widely by food type rather than by who prepared the food. The top ten heavily contaminated foods included rice products, teething crackers, raisins, granola bars with raisins, and oat-ring cereals.
Read the summary of results here: https://www.healthybabyfood.org/sites/healthybabyfoods.org/files/2022-08/ExecSummary_ENG.pdf