Parent Thread

as for the lead content, from what i found looking it up (not much information)

CA law says that even if 1/1000th of the amount toxic to humans is present, it needs to be listed so the amount in the baby food is probably the equiv to a grain or two of salt per 4 oz.

so if 1 oz of "lead" is toxic, then if there is 1/1000th of an ounce of "lead" in the veggies, it needs to be listed.


from a 2007 study on grown carrots.

" Old orchard soil had a lead level of 496 mg kg(-1), compared with 6.52 mg kg(-1) for non-orchard soil. Peeled carrot roots from old orchard soil contained 0.885 mg kg(-1) lead, and peeled roots from non-orchard soil contained 0.147 mg kg(-1) lead." that is NATURALLY occuring in the product.

now lets see, using wikipedia 0.0147 mg= 147ug(micrograms) per kg (atleast that is what i assume that kg(-1) means if someone knows definitively that it is not a kg then let me know..

symptoms of lead poisoning appear ~ anywhere between 20-60 ug/dl = 20-60 micrograms per decileter
a deciliter is 100grams & a kg is 10 deciliters ...so

200-600 micrograms of lead per kg= symptoms MIGHT appear.

carrots in that study had 147 micrograms per kg of naturally occuring lead in the carrots- the carrot absorbed the lead naturally in the soil

so according to the study, the 147 micrograms of lead in the not orchard soil carrots= not toxic , BUT according to CA law, since it is more than 1/1000th of the toxic level, it needs to be listed and warned about.

interestingly the old orchard soil would be "toxic" to children eating the carrots grown in it (885 micrograms per kg)

anyone actually believe that is so?

So I'm assuming if this is the case, that buying vegetables at the store and making your own baby food is just as likely to have just as much lead as retail baby food? I know there's other, better reasons to make your own baby food (no preservatives, sugar, etc), but I don't know that making your own will have much effect on lead content, unless you're actually GROWING your own vegetables(and testing your soil for lead content)

I would steam rather than boil. We didn't make much of our own baby food. For the first one we didn't really know and for the next couple we were just trying not to be overwhelmed. We did the Earth's Best jarred food because they had more of a variety. But like mkopec said, why buy jarred bananas for everyday use when you can just smash a banana? Or buy applesauce for all three kids and the baby can eat that. I think there is a middle ground. If we were to do it again and only have one kid, we would make our own pretty much exclusively. But with multiple kids sometimes you just have to take the shortcut.

Lol. Funny to read peoples opinion on baby food that clearly have no knowledge of food processing. I no longer work in the industry, but assure you that making your own baby food isn't going to change the lead, arsenic, etc content. And preservatives in baby food??? Which? Not to mention sugar - the only things with sugar ate typically targeted at toddlers.

The advantages to making your own are simple: cheaper and typically higher level of nutrients (depending on how you cooked it). Safer is debatable, especially if we are talking low acid foods like vegetables. The amount of testing companies like dole, Gerber, and beach nut due is outrageous. You have a higher chance of buying unsafe produce any your local store than from the big companies.

Tarrant_sl said:

Hense the perks of growing your own. It was one of the main reasons we made our own was because between our community garden and my personal garden I have more then enough spare so I just started making baby food for our youngest.

Click to expand...

This I agree with. Like anything else, if you have the time and resources doing things your self is typically safer. Its just like raising your own cattle, making your own cloths, etc.

Im not a scientist, but I'd imagine a lot of them would argue that growing your own isn't any more healthy/safe... its that whole organic vs non organic argument. For sure you can at least control how the food is grown - which is a definite benefit.

Excellent points, Lenaldo
One could wish for better food inspections and perhaps stricter rules for contents / larger fines. A free market does not regulate substances which are hard to detect / takes time to manifest in disease, it seems. Soylent green is people.

I'm 4.5 months in and my son has yet to sleep through the night. It's hell, and is doing my marriage no favors.

Long story not so short... Our son does sleep in the same room as us. We have a co-sleeper next to our bed (her side) he usually sleeps in - trying to make it an always thing. She's breast feeding so she feeds him during the night. She also changes his diapers during the night because while I can sleep through a hurricane, she can't sleep through a bee buzzing. She figures since she is up anyway... I keep telling her I'll do it, just wake me, but she does it anyway. I want to bottle feed him at night but her milk must be in overload or something, because if she doesn't feed him regular (or pump at work) her breasts really hurt. She refuses to put him in his room so far, because she wants to be around him. She commutes about 3 hours a day, so she gets home at 5:30, goes to bed with him at 8pm and if she didn't sleep next to him, she'd "spend time" with him for that little a day (plus I suppose an hour in the morning) and it makes her really sad to not be with him more. On top of which she has episodes of insomnia.

My wife is in zombie mode half the time, and unhappy with the situation (the commute, lack of sleep, lack of more time with our son, etc). She's looking for a closer job, but who knows how long that'll take. So we fight because I want my son to sleep in his room, she doesn't want him too. She's tired and unhappy half the time, and I just want my wife back, if that makes sense. I know it makes me sound like an asshole, but I think there's a little part in the back of my mind that is starting to resent my son, because my wife is just so tired and unhappy. I'd love to tell her quit her job and stay home, but frankly I don't make enough to support us right now, not now that we've just got our house.

My third turns a year next week and still doesn't sleep through the night. It fucking sucks.

She is getting close to being weaned so hoping we'll get there soon.

My son is 4.5 months old.