In a recent study, organic baby foods seemed to score less in nutrition value because of high sugar and lower levels of essential nutrients, like iron and protein. Sales of organic baby food, is on the high, since three out of four babies are growing up on daily helpings of these foods.
Regulations that mandated appropriate labeling of baby food , came into force last year. Yet it was observed that some organic products still contained three times more sugar as compared to prescribed limits. This was pinpointed by the Food standards agency.The problem revolved around improper rules governing companies that did not insist on disclosure of actual quantities of sugar in the product during production stage. With only total amounts being listed on the labels, it becomes the parents’ duty to check out each ingredient’s quantity to assess the level of sugar in the product.
Some organic foods also fell short of the regulatory requirement of food ingredient quantities, which means that if protein was supposed to be the only ingredient in the food’s name, then 40 per cent of the food must consist of that protein. Pediatric dietitians have expressed worry that babies were getting deficient in iron when they were consuming only organic baby foods.
The study has also provided a wakeup call to parents to look out for excessively high water content in some foods.
