a-mother-is-feeding-heinz-babyLike any good parent, I’m concerned about what I feed my kid. I’m not a zealot, I give the boy an occasional piece of chocolate or one of Dr. O’C’s oatmeal raisin cookies when she deigns to make them. But if there is one thing that I hate it is being screwed over by big corporations. So, when I heard a throwaway line on the podcast of Bill Maher’s Real Time last week about some baby food manufacturers marketing food that contains more fat than a fast food hamburger, I decided to do a little investigating. I trust the Far Left talkers no more than I trust the Far Right talkers and The Telegraph even less, so I headed direct to the source.

UK advocacy group the Children’s Food Campaign released a report in May analyzing the nutritional information provided for 107 foods marketed toward babies and young children in Britain. They found that “several products contained levels of sugar or saturated fat higher than those in adult products considered ‘junk food’.”

The CFC used the British Food Standards Agency guidelines for healthy levels of saturated fats and sugars. For example, the FSA defines a product as ‘high’ in saturated fats if its level exceeds 5 g per 100g, for sugar the threshold is 15 g per 100 g. These are the levels are for adult foods, so for babies and young children these amounts should probably be lower.

The CFC was interested in saturated fats because they are often indicative of the presence of trans fats. The level of trans fats, which have been associated with coronary heart disease, are not required to be disclosed in the UK, so saturated fats are the best indicator for these. While children need a higher level of fat in their diets than adults, saturated fats are not necessary. Breast milk, for example, contains only 1 – 2% saturated fat.

The CFC was worried about sugar for obvious reasons. There is strong evidence that regular consumption of sugary foods makes it more likely that they will develop a taste for sweet foods. Excessive consumption of sugary foods is linked with obesity and tooth decay. Sugar levels in children’s food is tricky, because most fruits have naturally high levels of sugar. The CFC report makes a distinction between foods that have naturally high levels of sugar – banana puree for example – and those with unnecessary added sugar.

berry-bearNow, to be fair, none of the foods that the CFC flagged as having worrying levels of sugar and fat were baby ‘meals’ – creamy chicken curry, for example – or pureed fruits. These products seem to be safe. The products that we should be concerned about are snack foods – biscuits (cookies), rusks, savoury snacks and desserts. The CFC found that the three major baby food manufacturers had at least one product that had high levels of sugar, saturated fat or both. Heinz was the worst offender with 25% of their products containing unhealthy levels of sugar or fat.

The CFC points out that a lot of these products make health claims that “while factually true, distract the consumers’ attention away from the less healthy attributes of the product”. In other words, baby food manufacturers are deliberately misleading consumers. What the CFC doesn’t point out is a pet peeve of mine. Some of the products that they flagged are ‘organic’. Folks, this is important – organic does not mean healthy.

After reading this report, my curiosity was piqued. Is this a UK problem or a world wide one? I decided to do a bit of research.

Because I live in Australia, I am more concerned with products marketed for children Down Under. I’m aware, however, that most of my readers are American but an exhaustive survey of the multitude of baby food brands available in the U.S. would require a significant investment of time. Nonetheless, a quick analysis of American baby foods reveals that the trends observed in the U.K. are also seen in U.S. products.

Most of the American baby food manufacturers do not publish complete nutritional information for their products online. Heinz, for example, publishes thorough information for all of their jarred food, but interestingly does not provide information for savory snacks, cookies and many dessert items. Beech Nut – didn’t Beech Nut used to be a type of chewing tobacco? – does not use a standard serving size for cookies and snacks, instead opting for providing nutritional information per cookie. This makes it difficult to determine how much sugar and saturated fat their products contain. Somehow I doubt that this gonaturalis an accident. Gerber should be lauded for transparency if not for healthfulness of their products as they offer full and clear nutritional information on their company website. Virtually all of their Gerber Graduates line of snacks contain very high levels of sugar – up to 57g per 100g serving in their Yogurt Melts. To their credit, most of these products are low in saturated fat. However, it seems that the CFC’s findings regarding baby foods in the UK are very similar in the United States.

There are only a few major baby food manufacturers in Australia. Heinz has the major market share with Only Organic and Golden Circle fighting over the remainder. Only Organic is pretty good, with only a couple of products exceeding the recommended levels of sugar. Both of these products contained large amounts of sugars from fruit sources and thus are not likely a major concern. Only Organic does not produce a snack food line, however. The two companies that do, Heinz and Golden Circle, offer no useful nutritional information online and have not yet replied to requests for information. (I used my professional affiliation in the request thinking that association with a university and a school which includes a large Nutrition Science program would get their attention).

A quick trip to the closest Woolies, however, answered my questions in a disturbing way. As in the U.K. study, most of the baby food  ‘meals’ and fruit purees were fine with very few additives and fat and sugar levels well within acceptable boundaries. But almost every snack or dessert food on the baby food shelves contained well over the acceptable levels of sugar and saturated fat. Every item in the Heinz Little Kids line exceeds these recommendations with levels of saturated fat from 2.5 to 8.1 g per 100 g and sugar from 40 to 52 g per 100 g. These products make claims like 35% Less Sugar than the leading brand (Heinz is the leading brand of biscuits targeted to infants and toddlers), No Added Colours or Preservatives or my favorite – All Natural. Folks, lard is natural but you wouldn’t feed it to your infant, would you?

heinz-little-kids-apricotCHOICE Food for Kids, an excellent consumer website, has thorough information on a number of other foods targeted at the toddler market and provides more information about the unfortunate state . Some of the worst offenders are products that imply healthiness. Mother Earth Fruit Crumble Muesli Bars, for example, contain 6.7 g per 100 g saturated fat and 30 g per 100 g sugar. Go Natural Berry Pieces in Yoghurt are one of the worst products on the market, containing a whopping 18.2 g fat per 100 g and 58.1 g sugar per 100 g. While they are more than half sugar, these tasty treats contain neither real fruit nor real yogurt. Yummy, dig in kids!

Another insidious trend is using well known children’s entertainment characters. The cloyingly sweet, yet remarkably slender Wiggles are probably not eating a lot of their ABC Letter Biscuits (7.6 g of saturated fat per 100 g).

It isn’t just sweet treats. Heinz Little Kids Cheesymite Bread Sticks have an unacceptable level of saturated fat. Every kid’s favorite ‘cheese’ food, Kraft Singles, pack a whopping 13.9 g of saturated fat per 100 g and 1.4 g of sodium per 100 g.

In short, Australia is in the same boat as the UK. If we buy baby and toddler food off the shelf, with the assumption that they are safe and healthy products – as advertised – we’re feeding our kids crap.

The CFC report offers a number of recommendations, most of which are directed towards the companies and government regulators. I’ve got a few suggestions as a parent.

  • No matter what country you live in, Heinz kid’s snacks are junk. Don’t buy them.
  • Don’t believe anything you read on a box. The health claims are marketing tools and are often deceptive. Look at the nutritional information. The UK Food Standards Agency recommends healthy levels of no more than 5 g per 100g saturated fat, 15 g per 100 g sugar and 1.5 g per 100 g sodium in any food products. Bear in mind that these recommended levels are for adults, kids probably need less. If the nutritional information is incomplete, they are trying to hide something. Don’t buy those products.
  • Don’t give kids cookies as a snack. The CFC recommends raw fruit or vegetables or natural yogurt. I know it is easier said than done. I’m guilty of taking the path of least resistance. Boy Z lived on those Heinz Little Kids ‘fruit bars’ for a while. I won’t be making the same mistake for baby #2. There are reasonably healthy packaged snack foods available. The CHOICE Food For Kids site is a good resource in Australia. If anyone knows of similar sites in the UK or US, let me know and I’ll link to them.

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