When Phaëdra Jean-Baptiste Mihalko, a registered nurse who lives in Brooklyn, started breastfeeding, she experienced several problems: from her daughter’s tongue-tie (ankyloglossia) to a breast infection that long went undiagnosed.
When they moved to solid foods, she opted for what she saw as the safest, most natural path: home-cooked meals. To her, that was easier to navigate than the maze of hard-to-identify ingredients in the baby food supermarket aisle.
Jean-Baptiste Mihalko is just one of the many new mothers and maternal and infant health experts who are moving away from the country’s baby food industrial complex. Their concerns around what they say are scarce regulation and problematic eating habits fueled by commercial infant food products is supported by new research.
A feeding journey
When her baby, Anne Sophie, turned 6 months, Jean-Baptiste Mihalko introduced puree into her daughter’s daily routine, but she didn’t trust the baby food sold at supermarkets. Jean-Baptiste Mihalko, an immigrant from Haiti, grew up eating good-quality natural foods, and would ensure the same for her daughter. She would boil food like carrots, potatoes, and sweet potatoes on the stove, then blend into a puree. She would vary the foods every couple days.
“I think she gets more of the nutrients whenever I make the food rather than buying it from a grocery,” she said. “I don’t really trust all the preservatives.”
It’s a feeling shared by some maternal and infant nutrition experts — and backed by a recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nutrients.
Why experts say most baby foods in your supermarket aren’t so healthy
The study found that most baby foods in U.S. supermarkets aren’t as healthy as they seem. Out of over 650 products studied, 60% didn’t meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) nutrition recommendations.
Almost all of them had claims like “organic” or “non-GMO.” But the WHO discourages these claims because they can mislead consumers into thinking the product is better, which isn’t always the case. Using these words appeals to what’s called a “health halo”: a marketing trick that makes people think a food or ingredient is healthier than it actually is.
When Anne Sophie was teething and fussy, Jean-Baptiste Mihalko recalls trying a certain cracker snack to help soothe her daughter’s gums. She had done her research and saw it was baby-friendly and organic.
But once Jean-Baptiste Mihalko started using a food health scanner application on her phone, she learned the snack didn’t have a good nutrient profile. Walking down the toddler section at the supermarket with the trusty app, she was surprised at how many products labeled “natural” or “organic” were problematic.
“It’s heartbreaking, because I’m just trying to do my best as far as what I’m feeding her, and then all of a sudden it’s like, what I thought was healthy wasn’t healthy,” Jean-Baptiste Mihalko said.
Many of these store-bought baby foods are packed with extra sugar, salt, and sweeteners, the study authors found. This can impact kids’ taste buds early on, making them prefer overly sweet flavors. While we’re all born with an evolutionary preference for sweet and salty foods, our preferences and behaviors around food are shaped by the time we’re about two years old, maybe even earlier.
The peril of pouches
Pouches can worsen the problem by making it easier to over-consume unhealthy baby food, according to Dr. Elizabeth Dunford, the lead study author and an adjunct assistant professor of nutrition at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“This is where it becomes interesting to me with the pouches, because pouches were not around when I was a kid,” Dr. Dunford said.
“We used to use a spoon, or we used to pick up the food with our hands, and now a lot of kids are just sucking down pouches,” she said.
While pouches are convenient, they aren’t great for infants’ development. Babies need to learn to chew and experience different food textures, which pureed pouches don’t offer. There’s a small window of time to set them up for success: by some estimates, four to nine months of age. If they don’t get used to a variety of textures early on, they may develop food texture aversions and refuse anything that’s not smooth. Babies also are more likely to overeat if they’re slurping from a pouch instead of taking their time with a spoon.
Sales of baby food pouches have surged by 900% over the past 13 years, the study found. They’re convenient for busy parents. And, like other marketing claims, the health halo is real with “fruit” and “vegetable” on the label.
“If it’s a fruit pouch, it’s not supposed to contain added sugar,” Dr. Dunford said. “If they’re trying to put it out there as a vegetable pouch, [they] shouldn’t be using fruit juice concentrate to sweeten it.”
The study is one of the few to look at commercialized baby foods that are excluded in most nutrient profile models around the world. Why are they often left out? The products aren’t supposed to be used as a primary food source for infants before they’re four months old.
“But as the kids get older — and I’m guilty of it too — you start using a lot of those products, especially the squeeze pouches,” Dr. Dunford said.
Baby-led weaning
In Jean-Baptiste Mihalko’s case, pouches weren’t in the picture for her daughter’s daily diet. She used a prune juice pouch only to relieve her daughter’s constipation. Instead, Anne Sophie would regularly eat with a spoon. But when her parents first started introducing solid foods, they didn’t stop her from using her hands.
“When they’re so small, sometimes they’re not really interested until later on, where she was [like], ‘oh, let me feel that texture in my hand,’” Jean-Baptiste Mihalko said.
It became a kind of choreography, a food “language,” between child and parents. Jean-Baptiste Mihalko would cut a slice of avocado and hand it to her. Her daughter would grab it, then bring it to her mouth. Jean-Baptiste Mihalko subscribed to the baby-led weaning approach, where babies are given whole, non-pureed food as an introduction to table food.
Baby-led weaning more directly raises the question of how we’re feeding our communities in healthy ways overall, according to Anastasia Libovich, the clinical director of Bronx Health Link, a community-based organization focused on maternal and infant health.
“We need families eating healthy meals in order for babies to be eating healthy meals, if they’re eating from the table,” Libovich said.
Commercializing baby food, on the other hand, can strip away cultural practices, she says.
Misleading labels
The study authors wish U.S. baby food labels would be more transparent. Unlike countries such as Australia and the U.K., where food labels are more straightforward, American companies aren’t required to list the exact amounts of ingredients, leaving parents unaware of what’s really in the food.
Phosphorus-based additives, which can cause kidney problems for kids later on, are some of the scary ones, Dr. Dunford says. They’re not necessary to make baby foods but are used to extend their shelf life, make production easier, and save costs. The use of additives in baby foods purchased by Americans skyrocketed over the past decade, she says.
This lack of regulation allows companies to slap on health claims that make the product seem better than it is, according to Dr. Dunford. By contrast, in Europe, products offer transparency features like a “high sugar flag.” Dr. Dunford says she would love to see terms like “added sugar” or “free sugar” on the label. Not using these in baby foods would be even better.
A more equitable future for commercial baby food
Dr. Dunford advocates for a level playing field where baby food products at every price point are held to the same standard. If neither the cheapest product or most expensive product were allowed to have a problematic ingredient in there, it would get closer to price equity.
“A poorer mother who’s making this choice, price is probably her strongest predictor, not healthiness,” Dr. Dunford said. “But if you have the same rule that applies to every product, then the mothers are always going to make a better choice.”
Jean-Baptiste Mihalko acknowledges that not every new mother has the resources she has, like her knowledge of nursing and the health system.
Still, there are simple steps every baby caregiver can take to maximize feeding, she says. One she swears by: sticking to a schedule where their baby naps at the same time daily. When her baby naps in the early afternoon, Jean-Baptiste Mihalko uses that time to eat and get other tasks done, including meal-prepping for the baby. These days, she makes Anne Sophie foods like rice and beans, sweet potatoes, carrots, and chicken or seafood, ensuring there’s enough for different meals she can rotate for lunch and dinner over a few days.
She also advises others to give themselves grace when feeding their babies, which took her a while to learn.
“Mothers out there are doing the best that they can,” she said. “I just don’t want people to beat themselves up if they’re not able to do things that they plan. Because a lot of times, your plan is not what’s really going to happen when you have a kid.”
Best practices for new caregivers on feeding their babies:
Dr. Dunford shares these tips on commercial baby food for new caregivers:
• Always read the ingredients. If you don’t recognize something, avoid it. Look for simple, whole ingredients like apple puree or peach puree.
• Watch out for hidden sugars: Be aware that fruit juice concentrates, like pear juice concentrate, count as added sugars even if not labeled as such. Convert total sugar grams into teaspoons (4 grams = 1 teaspoon) to gauge sugar content.
• Limit sugar intake: If a pouch has high sugar content (e.g., 15-20 grams), use it sparingly throughout the day. Compare products and choose ones with lower sugar when possible.
• Avoid relying on baby food for protein: These foods are often low in protein, and it’s better to get protein from breast milk, formula, or age-appropriate whole foods like dairy or lean meats.
• Be cautious of misleading claims: Don’t be swayed by labels like “organic” or “no added preservatives.” These claims don’t always mean the product is healthier, especially if it’s high in sugar.
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