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Organic Baby Food That is Mostly Water

Posted on: Thursday, 2 March 2006, 21:00 CST

By SEAN POULTER

IT is sold as the healthy and nutritious way to feed your baby.

But experts from Which?

claim organic baby food is not always as wholesome as it appears.

Many jars contain mostly water and others use 'creative labelling' techniques to make them seem healthier than they really are.

There are also worries that some products do not offer babies all the vitamins and minerals such as iron that they need.

The concerns follow a surge in sales of organic baby food products.

With many parents worried about the effects of pesticides on their children, three out of four babies are now regularly given organic and sales exceed those of non-organic varieties.

But researchers from Which?

say some major manufacturers like Cow and Gate and Heinz are not living up to the ideals of organic produce.

Rules on baby food labelling insist that information on key ingredients should be set out clearly.

If a protein is the only ingredient in the food's name then at least 40 per cent of it should be that protein so ' beef puree' should be 40 per cent beef.

If the protein comes first in a food's name as in 'chicken and vegetable dinner' then it must make up at least 10 per cent of the food.

And if the protein appears elsewhere in the name it should comprise at least 8 per cent of the food.

Which? said it believed Cow Gate's Organic Rosie's Orchard Chicken should have been 40 per cent chicken. However, it was only 8 per cent.

The company rejected the criticism. It said the product's actual legal name was 'Potatoes, peas, green beans and chicken simmered with apple' and therefore the low level of meat was allowed.

Water also crops up as the main ingredient in products 'again and again', said Which? It is the main ingredient, ahead of tomatoes, in Sainsbury's Organic Pasta and Ham.

Similarly, the tasty- sounding Mango and Pork Dinner from Heinz has water as its main ingredient followed by vegetables and mango. Pork is in fourth place with only 8per cent.

Some experts are also concerned that the increasing popularity of organic baby food means infants are going short of iron.

This essential nutrient is not put in organic baby food because of restrictions on what can be added to it to keep it 'organic'.

Paediatric dietician Judy More said fortified non-organic baby food has about 1.1mg of iron per jar whereas the organic equivalent has only 0.5mg.

She believes a baby fed exclusively on commercially-prepared organic food could consume 20per cent less iron than a baby eating the non-organic variety.

Other dieticians said that a healthy balanced diet would provide a baby with sufficient levels of th mineral, however.

Malcolm Coles, editor of Which?, said: 'While we didn't find any examples of the new rules actually being broken there was some creative labelling that might make you think you're getting more nutritious food than you really are.

'We'd like to see much clearer labelling so parents know just what they're buying.

'In the meantime, examine the labels and try to complement processed baby food with healthy home cooking.' s.poulter@dailymail.co.uk

Source: Daily Mail; London (UK)

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