Pages

Thursday, April 21, 2011

'Alarming' levels of arsenic and toxic metals found in baby food


The following article is taken from TODAYonline from here.

LONDON - Baby foods used to wean infants off milk have been found to contain "alarming" levels of toxic contaminants including arsenic, lead and cadmium, in tests conducted in Sweden.

The products tested by researchers were made by major baby food manufacturers including Organix, Hipp, Nestle and Holle.

Researchers found feeding infants twice a day on the shop-bought baby foods such as rice porridge can increase their exposure to arsenic by up to fifty times when compared to breast feeding alone.

Exposure to other toxic metals such as cadmium, which is known to cause neurological and kidney damage, increased by up to 150 times in some of the foods tested, while lead increased by up to eight times.

Although none of the levels of the toxic elements found in the foods exceeded official safety limits, scientists believe they are still of concern if fed to very young children and have demanded new guidelines to restrict their presence in food.

Young infants are thought to be particularly vulnerable to these substances because they are going through rapid development.

Writing in the journal of Food Chemistry, the scientists from the Unit of Metals and Health at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm said: "Alarmingly, these complementary foods may also introduce high amounts of toxic elements such as arsenic, cadmium, lead and uranium, mainly from their raw materials.

"These elements have to be kept at an absolute minimum in food products intended for infant consumption. In infant foods, the high concentrations of arsenic in the rice-based foods are of particular concern."

Experts now believe there are no safe limits for arsenic and manufacturers should be making more efforts to remove it from their food.

Professor Andrew Meharg, a biogeochemist at Aberdeen University who has studied the presence of arsenic in rice, said the latest research highlighted the urgent need for new restrictions on arsenic and other toxic elements in food. THE DAILY TELEGRAPH

6 comments:

  1. true? what abt foods in sg?

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have no idea too. The article did no mention whether the tested subjects were from a particular region or worldwide. So to be safe, I am going to minimise the exposure to those baby food...

    I am now trying to prepare baby food using pre-storage fresh food. Maybe I'll blog on how to prepare it next time. The pre-storaged food only need 10 minutes to prepare and can give to baby straightaway. A lot less hassle compared to normal food preparation method ;)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sorry I mean 10 minutes just before giving to baby. But Of course it took more time to prepare for storage, but that can be done whenever we are free.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This post really so interesting i am so impressed here.
    Thanks for posting..




    Stair Chair Lift

    ReplyDelete
  5. I am amazed to know what our babies are eating and even more at how they have managed to survive after eating such toxic foods. Is there any organization who is working to ban such toxic materials from baby food. If there is please let me know. You have done a great service by sharing a post about a matter of such grave concern. Thanks for that.

    ReplyDelete
  6. That's a grave situation. I wonder what authorities are doing in this regard.

    Dishwashing detergent powders

    ReplyDelete

Have you anything to say?

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...
Related Articles


RECENT COMMENTS