A year ago, the American Environmental Working Group published its report, Over-exposed: Organophosphate Insecticides in Children's Food, in response to the US Food Quality Protection Act, which requires all pesticides to be safe for children and infants, and requires combined exposure to pesticides to be considered when setting safety standards.
The report concluded that a million American children every day consume unsafe levels of a class of pesticides which can harm the developing brain and nervous system. The foods which most often caused children to exceed the "safe" limits of organophosphate pesticides were apples, peaches and grapes.
"Pesticides in baby food are not safe for babies," the report said. "Baby food should not have any pesticides in it at all."
And so say all of us, of course. And so you might decide to make your own purees for junior - some stewed apple, some pureed strawberries, a little mashed banana, perhaps. But just last month a report from the UK discovered toxic pesticides in up to 40 per cent of the vegetables and fruit sold in supermarkets and shops across Britain. Nearly half of the fruit and veg sold!
"Infants and young children eat greater amounts of food for their body weight than adults and are thus more susceptible to residues," writes Christopher Robbins in his book, Poisoned Harvest, and he goes on to point out that in an analysis of seven types of infant food carried out in 1985 and 1987, residues were found in infant milk and in cereal-based foods such as baby rusks. Some residues were higher than current UK Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs).
"According to the US National Academy of Sciences, children may be exposed to two or three times the adult equivalent of chemical residues, at a time when their immature bodies are less able to cope with them," writes Joanna Blythman in her seminal book, The Food We Eat.
But how realistic is it to expect busy parents to source organically and cook everything for a child from scratch, for every meal? Not very realistic, so the solution may be to look for organic baby food, which for many parents means Baby Organix.
Lizzy Vann and Jane Dick set up Baby Organix back in 1992 and ever since our own first baby arrived, in 1993, our children have been fed this brand. Our youngest recently celebrated reaching four lively months by having his first taste of solid food, an apple and blueberry puree which is one of the "First Tastes" range from the company, designed for babies of that age.
Reader, I could not get it into baby Patrick fast enough, and since then he has also enjoyed Emperor Apples, Prunes and Oatmeal (which admittedly provoked a quizzical grimace), Lambado Peas and Williams Pears. In particular, we have found the apples and pears have an excellent consistency, and are very easy to feed to the baby. Best of all, these foods have extremely good, pure, direct flavours, and not merely the sugar 'n' salt concoction which the commercial baby foods seem to me to taste of.
Baby Organix first foods, and their other organic foods and cereals, are now available in major supermarkets and in wholefood shops. Another popular organic brand to look for is Lipp foods, which has recently introduced a new line of specialist cereal dishes for babies of four months.