Homemade baby food just as toxic as many store-bought options, study says

(CNN) – Making baby food at home with store-bought produce may not significantly reduce the amount of toxic heavy metals in the food your child eats, according to a new report.

The report is from Healthy Babies, Bright Futures, an alliance of nonprofits, scientists and donors. Its mission is to reduce exposure to neurotoxic chemicals in young children.

Researchers tested 288 foods from stores and farmers’ markets across the U.S. and poured over data from 7,000 additional food tests.

The study showed 94% of manufactured baby foods, family foods and homemade purees made from purchased raw foods contain detectable amounts of one or more heavy metals.

Experts suggest parents stay away from high metal content foods and serve more low metal content foods.

The report found the most heavily contaminated foods eaten by babies were all rice-based.

Bananas were one of the least contaminated foods tested.

The paper’s co-author recommends mixing up the variety of foods and not serving the same options each day.

Since even the same food could have varying levels of toxic metals, parents can also choose different brands or varieties of foods or shop in different stores from week to week to avoid choosing a high-metal source regularly.

More information can be found at healthbabyfood.org.