Consumer Reports tests baby foods - heavy metals better, but rampant microplastics
- John McNeil, MD
Consumer Reports recently tested 48 baby foods from 11 brands (including Gerber and Happy Baby) and the good news was that heavy metal contamination trended down from prior years. The bad news was that microplastics were in nearly every food tested, including those in glass containers.
Only one tested product, Gerber apple juice in a plastic bottle, didn’t have (detectable) microplastics. Walmart’s pureed carrot food, packaged in plastic and paper, had the most microplastics detected - 814,589 particles per serving. Consumer Reports doesn’t report what type of analysis was used for microplastics levels, but reports finding “synthetic polyamide (nylon), polyurethane, polytetrafluoroethylene (Teflon), polyethylene, polypropylene, and others.” They didn’t test packaging but noted that even products stored in glass bottles had significant amounts of microplastics - as they report, this could be related to the lid or even paint on the lid (as has been indicted in other studies of microplastics in drinks in glass bottles).
PFAS, a forever chemical, wasn’t found in any products, thankfully. However phthalates, additive chemicals that soften plastic, were in many.
It is reassuring to see that in just three years, efforts by the FDA and states can lead to measurable differences in a toxin in a food. Hopefully these reductions can be extended into microplastics and phthalates. The responses from the companies are interesting to read. Obviously this is a quite sensitive issue, as for society there aren’t many things more important than making sure babies are being fed safely. Gerber’s spokesperson said: “Researchers, regulators, and public health experts continue to study how and where these substances occur, how exposure should be evaluated, and which approaches could be most effective for identifying and managing food-safety concerns. … Today, there is no standardized methodology for measuring microplastics in food.” I tend to agree - it’s quite hard to intervene and reduce exposure without a more widely accepted and standardized way to test. And I think it’s also clear that merely avoiding plastic containers will not stop all microplastics from being in our food - they are all throughout our environment, so they will inevitably end up in the food chain.