Jane Houlihan (59s):

Baby-led weaning the fact that you're making your own food at home can also make a difference because what the congressional investigations uncovered last year was that some of the vitamin mineral preservative additives that companies are using have really high levels of heavy metals and so if you're making your own food and you will be avoiding those kinds of extra sources of metals that certainly aren't needed with homemade purees and maybe foods,

Katie Ferraro (1m 23s):

Hey there, I'm Katie Ferraro Registered Dietitian, college nutrition professor and mom of seven specializing in baby-led weaning here on the Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy Podcast. I help you strip out all of the noise and nonsense about feeding, leading you with the competence and knowledge You need to give your baby a safe start to solid foods using baby-led weaning. Hello and welcome back today. We're talking about arsenic and heavy metals in baby food. Now hang tight before you click away because you're like, oh, Katie heavy metals and baby food that is so depressing. I do want to share that this interview episode has a lot of actionable steps in it that you can take to reduce your baby's exposure to heavy metals in the foods you are offering with baby-led weaning.

Katie Ferraro (2m 11s):

And my guests today are Charlotte Brody and Jane Houlihan from Healthy Babies, Bright Futures, so Healthy Babies, Bright Futures or HBBF is an organization working to create and support initiatives that measurably reduce babies exposures to neurotoxic chemicals, that harm brain development. And I know we've been talking a lot about heavy metals in baby food here on the Baby-Led Weaning Made Easy Podcast. Recently, much of that was surrounding the healthy baby food safety act of 2021. And a lot of that discussion arose from HBBF 2019 report called what's in my baby food. So that report was a national investigation that HBBF spearheaded, and they found that 95% of the baby foods, they tested, contain toxic chemicals that lower baby's IQ, including arsenic and lead.

Katie Ferraro (2m 59s):

So their report had safer choices for parents and manufacturers and retailers who are seeking healthy food for their babies. And that's what we're going to tease out here in this episode. What is it that we can do? It's one thing to know about it and understand the issue, but then what can we do as parents to minimize risk? So today I am delighted to be interviewing Charlotte Brody, the National Director of HBBF and Jane Houlihan, the research director together to talk about some of these actionable changes that we can make in both food purchasing and preparation in order to minimize heavy metal exposure for our babies and Jane and Charlotte will be teaching a bit about how Heavy metals get into the food supply. Also, why you can't just buy your way out of this problem. Some parents think like, oh, I'll just avoid certain categories of foods like pouches or jarred baby food.

Katie Ferraro (3m 40s):

And we're all good. Not so because heavy metals are present in many of the foods that we offer babies with baby-led weaning, even if they're organic foods like sweet potatoes and carrots and apples. So Jane and Charlotte are going to share some cooking tips. I know the one that Jane is teaching about for how to make your rice definitely blew my mind. I'm going to be changing how I prep rice for BLW effective immediately as a result of this conversation. So with no further ado, I want to welcome Charlotte Brody and Jane Houlihan from Healthy Babies, Bright Futures to talk about heavy metals, including arsenic in our baby's foods.

Jane Houlihan (4m 11s):

Hey were happy to be here.

Katie Ferraro (4m 15s):

I am so excited to chat with both of you. I really appreciate the work you were doing at healthy babies, bright futures. Before we start, could you tell us a bit maybe about both of your backgrounds and how did you come to work at HBBF and then what is your role there?

Jane Houlihan (4m 28s):

Yeah, I'm Jane Houlihan and I direct research at healthy babies, bright futures. We've been in business since around 2016, but, and before that I have had a career as an environmental engineer and a research director at nonprofits. And I work mainly on children's health and chemical exposures. So this work on, on heavy metals, toxic heavy metals in baby food is a near and dear to my heart.

Charlotte Brody (4m 54s):

I'm Charlotte Brody. I'm a Registered Nurse. And Jane and I were among the founders of Healthy Babies, Bright Futures, but Jane and I have worked on other chemicals that are hurting people, health issues. We were co-authors of a report 20 years ago called not too pretty about salads in personal care products. And we both were founders of the campaign on safe cosmetics. So we have a long history of working together on the issues of chemicals that are hurting people's health.

Katie Ferraro (5m 28s):

And our audience consists primarily of parents and caregivers of babies aged six to 12 months who are making that transition to solid foods. So they are very interested in the work that healthy babies bright future is doing. And I wanted to ask first about the 2019 HBBF study that found heavy metals in 95% of the baby foods that were tested. Could you tell us a little bit about these findings and then how they might impact parents and caregivers of infants who are listening?

Jane Houlihan (5m 53s):

Yeah, this is Jane I'll. I'll start on that one. Our 2019 study looked at 160 different baby foods. So all kinds of infant cereals, formula, vegetables, fruits, you name it, we tested it and we found toxic heavy metals in 95% of what we tested. And other kind of shocking finding for me is that in, in a quarter of all baby foods, we've got four different metals in the same container. So those are lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury. The problem with prevalent contamination in baby food is that all of these heavy metals impact the neurological development of babies and all babies are exposed.

Jane Houlihan (6m 36s):

What we found, because these are in almost every food we tested. Babies are exposed with every meal every day. And so these exposures, even though the levels are low, the exposures are adding up over time to what can be significant risk for babies.

Katie Ferraro (6m 51s):

And what are some of the developmental risks associated with heavy metal consumption and babies? I would assume this is under the umbrella of, you know, when in doubt, leave it out. Like no levels of these are good for babies, but why

Charlotte Brody (7m 2s):

That's right. So this is Charlotte. So, you know, the old way that like sort of 1950s, maybe early 1960s and earlier way of thinking about toxic chemicals is that they were safe, safe, safe, safe, safe until this magic number where they were dangerous and then they were poison and then they cause cancer. But as long as you were under that magic number, you were okay. But what we've really come to understand is that for metals like arsenic, lead mercury and cadmium, and some other chemicals, there's no safe level that they harm the wiring of the brain and the nervous system at any level of exposure.

Charlotte Brody (7m 44s):

And that while we don't see, and it's great that we no longer see the same kind of lead poisoning, we used to see where kids were having seizures, right, and having to be taken to the emergency room. These low level exposures can add up to harm. And the harm that we see is in the one in six children, having some sort of learning disability, you know, from autism to mild delays in the ability to learn. But all of them, you know, for, I was once a parent of a six to a 12 month old, and you want to do whatever you can to give your baby the best chance in life.

Charlotte Brody (8m 25s):

And so the work that we've done is really about how to both drive the FDA and companies to pay attention to these low level of contaminants. And also the great work that Jane has led in figuring out what parents can do to lessen the harm that is going into their baby. With every meal

Katie Ferraro (8m 45s):

With baby Led weaning. One of the benefits is not having to buy processed, packaged baby foods because essentially babies are learning to eat modified versions of the same foods that the rest of the family is eating. But I understand that HBBF is also working on initiatives, beyond commercial prepared baby foods in looking into the heavy metal content of regular food items that might be used in homemade baby food preparation. So, you know, you're not quote unquote exempt from this because all babies need to learn to eat some sort of food. And could you tell us more about your work in that area outside of commercial baby food,

Jane Houlihan (9m 16s):

Or I'd be happy to do that. We're in fact, we're releasing a study later this summer on this exact issue because when we released our report in 2019, we saw responses in the media and, you know, bloggers and other folks who were reading the work saying, well, I'm okay because I'm, I'm making my own baby food. And what we wanted to show in our new work is well, heavy metals really just aren't in the baby food aisle. They impact all the foods that you might buy, all the ingredients from the produce aisle, or, you know, the grains and other things you're buying for your baby. If you're making your own food at home. So you can't just shop your way out of this problem, to some extent, because these metals are everywhere and in our new report, coming out later this summer, we're really digging in to all the different food types that babies eat, homemade purees, family foods that, you know, foods you'd serve the whole family, as well as baby foods to look food, buy food.

Jane Houlihan (10m 13s):

What are we finding? You know, where can you really make a difference to lower exposures for your family? But certainly not just in the baby food aisle, it's, it's across all the foods we eat.

Katie Ferraro (10m 24s):

I'm just curious about your reports. They're so lengthy they're so in-depth, I mean, they're fabulous. So I do appreciate some types, like, do you guys summarizing what's in there? Cause I'm like, this is a lot, this is heavy tends to be depressing as well, honestly, but the summer 22 report, how long would it take you to put together a port like that? And who's involved?

Jane Houlihan (10m 41s):

Yeah. Sometimes it's a good year long effort to put together a report like that. We're recruiting shoppers from all over the country to buy the foods we've planned up front, what we would like to test. So we're giving detailed instructions, sending people out to a variety of stores all over the country. We send the samples to a lab that is the certified as proficient in heavy metal testing. They can really test very accurately at low levels. So we know with a high degree of certainty, what's in the food, we receive results. We process the data, we look at it 10 or 20 different ways to see what does this data really show we're doing all the background research we need to do because we're not the only ones working on this issue.

Jane Houlihan (11m 28s):

There's a good, you know, on baby food alone, over 10 years of sustained research on heavy metals and baby food. So we need all that under our belt. So we, you know, have the full picture. And then of course we have a work reviewed by outside experts by the baby food companies, by scientists at others. So we know where we're getting it right. So it can be a really extended process. But in the end, what we really try to do is give parents, this is one of the main things we try to do. Gift parents, simple actions you can take at home that will really make a difference. So even though the report might be dozens of pages long, and there are tables and figures and all kinds of stuff, you know, for parents, we try to produce something simple. Okay. If I only have time to look at a fact sheet, you know, I want to find one, I want to get, what can I do that to help my child?

Jane Houlihan (12m 13s):

So we try to really help parents on that side too.

Katie Ferraro (12m 16s):

So I'm hearing there's researchers involved. There's statisticians, I assume epidemiologists you've probably have, you know, writers. And then I thought that's so interesting that you pass it back to the baby food companies. Are you allowing them a chance to rebut it? Or what is their involvement there? Because I can't imagine they're going to be happy to read about, you know, all the products that babies are eating that are they're producing that are potentially harmful.

Jane Houlihan (12m 37s):

Well, we want to be sure we have it right. And so, you know, with our 2019 report, they, baby food companies had a chance to review. And you know, one company for instance, asks us to retest one or two of the products because they had different levels come back from their labs. So we retested and verified. They're the experts in how to make baby food and the ingredients that are going into their baby food. So it's actually really helpful for us to get their feedback,

Katie Ferraro (13m 2s):

But I would assume that heavy metal testing is it's not mandatory in the sense that if they're doing it, they're doing it voluntarily. And at threshold levels that perhaps other experts would disagree with.

Charlotte Brody (13m 11s):

So we want it to be mandatory. And that's what the baby food safety act of a bill that is now being rewritten for the new session of Congress folks to do. And it's something that the FDA has promising to do in their closer to zero program, which is a result of our studies and consumer reports studies, and the attention that's been paid to this issue. Attention that's come late, but still welcome. The companies need to be part of the solution and we've tried, and Jane has done, you know, the lion's share of this meticulous work. And we think it needs to be meticulous or the baby food companies would ignore it, Ignore it.

Charlotte Brody (13m 56s):

And the FDA ignored it. Right? So all of the tables and the elegance of what Jane writes is really meant to create the change that that should have been made five years ago or 10 years ago. And hasn't been made yet and is made to prevent the companies or the government discounting this as a bunch of crazy women, you know, because women are off hysterical and overly sensitive and all of those things. So it's the combination of the meticulous science, but also wanting to really both talk about the long-term solution or the hopefully the short term solution of companies actually testing and putting the lowest level contaminated ingredients into products.

Charlotte Brody (14m 41s):

And at the same time, giving parents what they need to know today, right? And without revealing too much of what our new report will show, it just makes sense that a sweet potato from the produce aisle and the sweet potato and a jar of baby sweet potatoes, they both have the problem of being sweet potatoes and sweet potatoes pull up a lot of heavy metals. And at the same time, the oatmeal, either the baby oatmeal or the regular oatmeal just has a whole lot less contamination, then it's rice equivalent. So there are things that can be done today to just pick healthy foods that are less contaminated either in the baby food aisle or from ingredients you make together at home.

Katie Ferraro (15m 32s):

And we've covered the topic, especially with regards to arsenic in white rice cereal, rice cereal on the podcast previously. And as I understand it, you know, sometimes parents think buying organic will help them. But Jane mentioned, you can't buy your way out of this one, because is it true that organic farming methods versus conventional, it doesn't matter because essentially they're both at risk or is there a lower risk of heavy metal toxicity if you choose organic

Jane Houlihan (15m 57s):

And there's not a lower risk with organic organic does a lot of things. You won't get synthetic pesticides, you know, and other, other chemicals that you want to stay away from when it comes to what you're serving your baby, but heavy metals crops are pulling heavy metals up out of soil and water and they're present everywhere. And so that you don't get the benefit with organics of excluding those metals, whether it's an organic sweet potato or conventionally grown sweet potato or carrot or rice, you'll be pulling up arsenic lead cadmium, you know, the, whether it's organic or not. So one thing that we've looked at is okay, if you can't solve the problem as a parent, by buying organic, if you can't solve it by, you know, making your own baby food at home, what can you do?

Jane Houlihan (16m 42s):

You know? So there are simple things, you know, for things like sweet potatoes, well peel the sweet potato because you know, some of the metals are concentrated in the peel. So simple things like that can make a big difference. You know, with rice, you've already, you've done shows on rice. So you've covered, you know, buy basmati rice from California, much lower levels. You know, we know that the rice grown in us in general has lower levels from some other parts of the world. But rice from California has even lower levels because it's not pulling up as much Arsenic from the soil. So there are simple things like that, just looking at, you know, okay, where is this rice from? You know, and that can help a lot, whether it's, you know, you're buying a bag of rice from, from the supermarket, you know, I, or avoiding infant rice, cereal, oatmeal, infant cereal instead.

Katie Ferraro (17m 29s):

Okay. This is like right up our alley because our, I teach a hundred FIRST FOODS program. So we get babies eat a hundred different foods before they turn one. And the framework is based. I have a five-step feeding framework where we pull five foods a week, one from each of five food categories. And one of them are the starchy foods. So the foods that you're saying, my parents they're familiar with it, sweet potatoes, rice, oatmeal, looking for other whole grain options. The foods that you've mentioned so far do seem to be centralized more in the starchy foods category. Is there a greater potential for heavy metal toxicity and starchy foods as compared to fruits, vegetables. We also have a protein foods and allergenic foods, and those are a little bit more convoluted, but is it the starchy foods, more of the problem,

Jane Houlihan (18m 10s):

The problem, our rice based foods, we find that rice based foods have higher total Heavy metals levels than any other food we test. The problem is Arsenic that rice just preferentially pulled up a lot of Arsenic, 10 times more than other grains and arsenic is linked to IQ loss for kids, you know, learning problems. And it's also a carcinogen. So it's just something you want to stay away from. We did a comprehensive assessment of IQ loss from baby foods, looking at lead and arsenic, both. And we found that across all the foods, babies commonly eat it's rice-based foods that are driving the highest percentage of IQ loss compared to all other foods.

Jane Houlihan (18m 52s):

So it's a rice problem, but other significant foods that tend to have higher levels are greens, carrots, sweet potatoes, Rutan, tuber vegetables I'll tend to have higher levels. And so there are so many simple things parents can do to reduce exposures, whether it's sweet potatoes, carrots, screens, easy steps, peeling, sweet potatoes, and carrots is a great step to take with greens. You know, buying baby spinach instead of regular spinach is a good step to reduce levels, eating a variety of foods. So important. Don't feed the same food to babies every day, swap it around. So you're not accidentally concentrating a particular heavy metal in the diet from one of those foods.

Katie Ferraro (19m 36s):

And from a choking prevention standpoint, we're always advising parents to remove, especially for sweet potatoes are a very, very well heavily used simple starter food for baby led weaning. And obviously from a chewing and swallowing standpoint, we don't have six month olds eating the skin, but that's important to remember as your kids get older and are more capable of eating them, would you still recommend like when you guys eat sweet potatoes, I mean you're fully formed, so I guess that's different, but for older children even, is it still important to be removing the skins?

Jane Houlihan (20m 2s):

We do recommend removing the skins. Yeah. And we, you know, we don't have a lot of data from the U S on some of these vegetables. It's just now getting, being funded by the federal government and research is starting up. So I think in the next five years, we'll know a lot more, even about the best varieties, the best steps to take, you know, when you absolutely need to peel. But right now the, you know, based on the information that is available, we're recommending peeling,

Katie Ferraro (20m 28s):

Any other tips like the baby spinach instead of regular spirits, like that's a simple step that parents can take. We have spinach, or we have leafy greens on our a hundred FIRST FOODS list. I know you don't have time to go through all a hundred foods, but any other tips like that, like foods that we traditionally make into baby foods that are offered to babies, that we could make simple swaps at home to reduce toxic metal exposure for

Jane Houlihan (20m 47s):

Things that are super nutritious, like greens, just to bury the grains, you could serve, you know, Swiss chard one day or collards and other, or, you know, kale and other spinach, another. So not serving the same because every food that you serve, your baby will have its own unique profile of heavy metals. So just making sure you're serving a variety is really important. Fruit juice is a good one to talk about because while for it just doesn't have super high levels. Some kids drink a lot of it, some toddlers and older babies. And that's one where, because of the amounts that they're drinking, they get a pretty high exposure. So it makes a lot of sense to skip fruit juice, which doesn't offer a nutritional benefit and to stick to the whole fruits, tap water.

Jane Houlihan (21m 32s):

If a child is old enough, instead, they'll get the fiber, the nutrients from the fruit, even though there's heavy metals everywhere, they'll get nutrients and fiber on top of everything else. So it's a good step to just avoid fruit juice altogether limit, and really limit it.

Katie Ferraro (21m 48s):

And you mentioned funding earlier, like I'm listening to this report, you guys are about to put out like, this is not cheap to do. Who is funding, the report who funds your work at healthy babies, bright futures.

Charlotte Brody (21m 59s):

So this is Charlotte. We've gotten our funding from foundations, some foundations that care about food quality, some foundations that care about chemicals and health and other foundations that care about what's called environmental health. You know, thinking about how the environment is impacting human health and what we can do to both protect the environment and make people including babies healthier.

Katie Ferraro (22m 24s):

And of course, the swaps that we make after the fact to limit risks are important. But I would assume there's a much larger underlying issue here about where the heavy metals coming from in the first place. That's probably a very complicated topic in and of itself, but just high level. Are there higher levels of toxic metals in our food supply now compared to previous decades or their different contributors? What is part of the underlying issue?

Jane Houlihan (22m 48s):

Well, these metals have been around forever and I, in some places they're concentrated because of things that we've done over time, industrial operations and a gasoline and cars, putting a lot of led into the atmosphere that then drops down onto fields, mining, you know, crops that are grown in mining areas sometimes tend to have higher levels. So there's so many ways that even though these metals are everywhere in some places they're concentrated and we're asking, you know, part of the solution will be for growers to test their fields and for companies to set requirements for that so that they know they're not growing, you know, their sweet potatoes, their carrots, their rice in a field that has, that has unusually high levels,

Charlotte Brody (23m 32s):

Arsenic can occur naturally. But Arsenic also got used as a pesticide before the modern age of pesticides. And so fields that had, that were treated with arsenic, especially fields that had continent at one time tend to have an enormous amount of arsenic beyond what might be in the soil or in the water. It's also true for lead that yes, the sweet potatoes that are grown closer to the road have more Lennon than Munis sweet potatoes in the middle of a field. But it's also true that lead got used as a way of keeping fertilizer and pesticides to make them heavy enough that they wouldn't blow away.

Charlotte Brody (24m 15s):

And so there's some lead contamination that just came from the not very savvy agricultural practices of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years ago.

Katie Ferraro (24m 28s):

You mentioned the boss, basmati rice grown in California being a better option than perhaps from different countries on the whole it's does the United States stack up better? Not so great compared to other countries? Or is it just really hard to say, because we live in such a global food environment where half the time, to be honest, you don't even know where your food is coming from. Is it safe to say by California produce across the border? Is it really a case by case

Jane Houlihan (24m 52s):

It's totally missed my case. Yeah.

Charlotte Brody (24m 55s):

I wish it was simpler.

Katie Ferraro (24m 57s):

I wish you would just make a chart, tell us where to buy all our food from the biggest, a lot easier. Yeah.

Charlotte Brody (25m 1s):

And it's not all us rice, right? The rice grown in Louisiana or Texas, right. Jane is pretty contaminated. It's basmati and it's California. And then another tip that Jane taught me is to make rice, like you make pasta, right? So I was taught that you should really measure the rice and measure the water. And if the rice is done, when there's not any water left, which turns out to not be so good, if you're trying to lower the arsenic levels and instead to put a lot of water in and to time it, like you do pasta and then to pour the water out, pours out a lot of the Arsenic.

Katie Ferraro (25m 42s):

So essentially you're diluting it. If you're, I would assume some of the arsenic leaches out through the cooking process and then into the cooking water, if you're doing it till it all evaporates, you're putting the arsenic right back into the final product. Is that the assumption there?

Jane Houlihan (25m 55s):

Yeah. It, the arsenic is, is soluble a lot of the Arsenic in the rice. So it comes out in the, in the water, the boiled water, and then you're pouring it off. So you can lose, you know, around 60% to 60% of the Arsenic just by cooking and extra water. But, you know, you're also then losing the, you know, vitamins and minerals that are sprayed onto rice.

Katie Ferraro (26m 15s):

Yeah. But if you're using rice as your primary source of nutrition, you've got bigger problems. Cause there's not a lot in there to begin with, but that's really helpful a technique just for cooking. Because again, we never want to say, especially for certain food cultures where rice is so important, never feed your baby, a rice product, that's not appropriate either. So having these ideas on how we can potentially reduce the risk and still offer these foods to babies on occasion. But I love that you're really reiterating some of our most important messages, which is surrounding the importance of diet diversity. And there's this large body of evidence emerging to really show the importance of diet diversity for infants. And there's so many benefits and we can now add, you know, reduced risk of toxic metals.

Katie Ferraro (26m 56s):

If you're offering a variety of foods as another kind of tick mark in the plus column for why we want to offer babies a variety of foods.

Jane Houlihan (27m 3s):

Yeah. You know, you've probably talked a lot about the iron and babies. Come on the show before that babies need enough iron it's super important. And so if you, as a parent, relying on iron fortified, infant rice cereal as a source of iron for your baby, then, but then you're boiling the rice. So it removes some of the iron you're boiling it in extra water, removes the Arsenic. Great. But it's also taking out some of the iron and that's one reason that we're really recommending iron fortified oatmeal, and multi-grain cereals that there are choices. You know, if you're relying on cereal as an iron source of iron for your baby, there are other great choices that are iron fortified that aren't, you know, that don't have high levels of heavy metals.

Katie Ferraro (27m 45s):

Absolutely. And if you're relying on the whole grains, those are going to be naturally higher in iron than the refined counterparts. So you don't even need to go so far as to have them fortify. Cause we really teach parents about the importance of not relying on fortified foods, because there are so many naturally occurring sources of iron that babies can safely eat. And again, it lends back to this importance of variety and variety and that there's no one food we offer the baby every day. Yeah. Could we chat about, you mentioned the baby food safety act of 2021. I think for parents, they're just starting to hear about it. I'd be interested to hear what is your organization's involvement in that legislation and then any updates there. We're recording this in the summer of 2022, so early July.

Charlotte Brody (28m 26s):

So the baby food safety act like so many other good ideas that turn into federal legislation didn't turn into a law in 2021, but it did create some change. It woke up the FDA that they needed to do more and they created the closer to zero program and it puts some funding into the hands of the USDA to do the research that Jane was talking about that is really looking at how big a difference does appealing make. What can we learn about different varieties of rice or different varieties of characters, sweet potatoes that just don't pick up the contaminants that are in the soil.

Charlotte Brody (29m 9s):

They leave it in the soil and keep all the nutrition. It's ridiculous. That research is only happening now. It's not like we didn't have sweet potatoes 10 or 20 years ago, but it's great that it's happening. And those things wouldn't have happened without I'll be immodest for a minute. Jane's reports, the press that those reports got the interest in Congress and doing more and doing their own report with information from the required from the baby food companies, their response to that concern, depressed that report got, and then the response from the FDA and the USDA getting this money. So that's all good. And that's all towards the solution.

Charlotte Brody (29m 51s):

Is any of it happening quickly enough? No. And so right now, a new version of the same basic proposed law is being drafted. Again, it would require the FDA to set limits in a faster timetable that they're doing now. It would require companies to do more testing. And it would importantly say that if a food has higher contaminant levels than what FDA has promulgated, right. If it's above those levels, it's adulterated. So it's the same as a food that has e-coli or another illegal substance or another unsafe substance.

Charlotte Brody (30m 36s):

So that would require the companies to do more. And we know that the companies have already done some work on their own, maybe to get ready for this federal action and maybe to respond to what parents have told them. So the problem is better than when we started in 2016, but it's not nearly good enough. And so w what we're really thinking about is that, you know, it's partly a kitchen and it's partly a country solution that we have to tell parents what they can do today. But we also recognize that parents shouldn't have to worry about this, right. There's enough to worry about without lead and mercury and arsenic and cadmium being in babies foods.

Charlotte Brody (31m 19s):

So we hope that what the FDA is doing and what the baby food safety act and representative Christian Morty's efforts to re-introduce, that will add up to more change in the right direction.

Katie Ferraro (31m 32s):

And Charlotte, when you say the FDA and vaster in the same sentence, I think most parents are like, well, this is a long haul. I mean, I'm curious, this has been so top of mind, and really because of your work, Jane, just out there for parents to say, oh my gosh, I had no idea, but how do we keep that momentum going? You mentioned that it will be turned in. There are another arm of the baby food safety act that could potentially become law, or what's it looking like from the legislative standpoint?

Charlotte Brody (32m 2s):

It's not yet, re-introduced when it is parents telling their congresspeople and their senators, that this matters that this is a problem that shouldn't exist and doesn't need to exist. And that this is something that candidates should run on elected should be proud of co-sponsoring and it needs to become more of the fabric of what matters to American parents in a way that are elected to a respond to.

Katie Ferraro (32m 30s):

And it's so hard because your baby is in that range for such a short period of time that you guys are invested in this. You've been working on it for decades, but I think a lot of times parents what's the next problem. The next problem, the next problem has their children, quote, unquote, age out of this, that as the electrode, they might be less involved. And so I really applaud you guys for keeping it top of mind and reminding us that this affects all children and that it's not going away quickly.

Jane Houlihan (32m 55s):

Yeah. We like to remind ourselves that almost 10,000 babies begin eating solid food every day. So it keeps us motivated to keep getting the word out, you know, we've, we issued our last big report in 2019, as you said, you know, those parents have moved on, they have toddlers now. So there's a whole new batch of parents who need, who need to learn about this issue. You know, one thing I think the show can really help your listeners with is just giving proper nutrition to babies. And that's super relevant when it comes to heavy metal contamination, because when babies get enough iron and enough calcium, when they have, when they have a really nutrient, rich diet, they absorb a lot less of that metal contamination that they're eating with these foods to being healthy and nutritious and having a great nutritious diet is a huge help.

Katie Ferraro (33m 41s):

I do want to ask before we wrap up about WIC, because we have a very large contingent in our audience of white parents and WIC educators. And we've done a lot of content on WIC, especially with the proposed changes to the wick food package. I do a lot of speaking about infant feeding for state WIC associations across the country, and collectively, I think we're all interested in the work that healthy babies, bright futures is doing to make WIC food safer. Could you share a little bit about the initiatives you're working on with regards to the WIC food package?

Jane Houlihan (34m 5s):

Well, I will say off the bat, and then I'll kick over to Charlotte that the work that we we've done and consumer reports has done on Arsenic and infant rice cereal has made a difference because those cereals have been taken out of the WIC programs in three states, Hawaii and Alaska and Oregon. And we'd like to see that done nationally. I mean, the WIC programs pay attention to this issue. So we're, we'd like to see, you know, broader change even from at the national level, but Charlotte, what would you add to that

Charlotte Brody (34m 35s):

With representative Christian Moore wrote a letter to WIC about the national WIC program, doing what Oregon, Alaska, and Hawaii have already done, and D listing taking off the WIC list, the most highly contaminated food, infant rice cereal, and promoting the healthier alternatives. So Wiki is such an important program and we wanted to help lower the levels of contaminants in WIC babies.

Katie Ferraro (35m 4s):

So one food rice cereal, three states, I mean, it's a baby step, essentially. What are the other things, if you could wave your magic wand and have the national WIC association say across every state, this is what we ideally would want. What other foods would you want removed or changed from the WIC food package?

Charlotte Brody (35m 20s):

Well, it's a difficult time to be talking about infant formula, but once this crisis is over, we propose to wick that there needs to be more information about water quality when you're mixing powdered formula with tap water, that if that tap water is contaminated with lead, there's going to be lead in what your baby is drinking and eating. And so thinking about water quality and water filters, you know, a refrigerator, water filter that is labeled that it deals with lead really works. So thinking that that's something that we could do, it was another part of our ask

Katie Ferraro (36m 0s):

Actually providing the filters or educating about filters.

Charlotte Brody (36m 3s):

Well, we thought this is where we get into, like, what does the legal language mean? We think we could provide the water filters and with lawyers, weren't sure that they could do that, but even

Katie Ferraro (36m 16s):

Never know unless you ask,

Charlotte Brody (36m 18s):

Right. Even if it was just education that would help. And in addition, we think that the same parents guides that we have produced and will be producing in our upcoming report. We want to be plagiarized, right. We want people to cut and paste everything. Yeah.

Katie Ferraro (36m 33s):

Please make it easier for us. I mean, honestly, the guides are so important for parents. I mean, I'm a healthcare professional, but all the research in the world doesn't matter if the parents aren't hearing the message, right.

Jane Houlihan (36m 43s):

And we want to get the guides out in the world. So they get used while we still are pushing FDA to make the national kind of Countrywide changes that need to be made.

Katie Ferraro (36m 52s):

Yeah. And as an aside, when the report, when the guides come out, please let me know how we can disseminate to our audience on our platforms so that the parents can get this information because we're direct to the parents. And I, as kind of the liaison appreciate the work the researchers are doing, but I it's my life's mission to have the parents and have it in a form that parents can understand because they do have so many other things that they're quote unquote worrying about. And this is all very, very important stuff at the time when our babies bodies and brains are in their most crucial developmental phases, both during pregnancy, and then in infancy, the choices that we're making about what we put into our bodies really do have lifelong impact.

Katie Ferraro (37m 35s):

And I know it's a hard message to kind of craft without scaring the, you know, what out of everybody, but I think you guys are doing a wonderful job. And I'm curious if you could just share where our audience could go to learn more about the work that is being done by healthy babies, bright futures.

Jane Houlihan (37m 48s):

You can start with our website, which is HBBF.org for healthy babies, bright futures. So we have plenty of information. All our parents guides, they're just, you know, navigate to the baby food page on, and everything's right there for you to navigate to. So we really want to get our gut, you know, get the information out in the world, because as you said, there's no more sensitive time in life. Then, you know, during pregnancy, during infancy and the brain is developing so quickly and here we are exposing babies to this multitude of, of toxic heavy metals. And it's a time when parents really need to pay attention and make a big difference.

Charlotte Brody (38m 28s):

Yes. And look for our new report coming this summer. And we'll be certain to share it with you, Katie,

Katie Ferraro (38m 35s):

Please do. And we'll get it out there as much as we can, because I do think, you know, last year we heard so much about, you know, the healthy baby food safety act. Not that it went away, but we need to keep these issues kind of top of mind for parents, especially for parents, a lot of our families, they find it's when they have their first baby, they're going to have a few more babies. This is not an issue that's going to go away. And it's so inspiring. The work that you guys are doing also, your website is such a wealth of information. It is so well organized. I think these are heavy topics, but you do a really nice job of making it, they know, bite size approaches that parents can use. And there's a lot more actionable tips and recommendations on your website that parents can check out. And we'll link to all of that in the show notes for this episode as well.

Charlotte Brody (39m 14s):

And we're we re-doing the website? So hopefully it will be even better.

Katie Ferraro (39m 17s):

Well, good for you is I am very impressed by it.

Jane Houlihan (39m 21s):

Baby led weaning. The fact that you're making your own food at home can also make a difference because the, what the congressional investigations uncovered last year was that some of the vitamin mineral preservative additives that companies are using have really high levels of heavy metals. And so if you're making your own foods, you will be avoiding those kinds of extra sources of metals that certainly aren't needed with homemade, homemade purees, and maybe foods.

Katie Ferraro (39m 49s):

Jane, would you say there is a list of low contaminant foods, just like there's lower mercury fish. Where do parents get this information from?

Jane Houlihan (39m 56s):

We pointed some of those out in our 2019 investigation, but there are things like bananas and apples and pears and peas and green beans. There are plenty of, you know, low metals, fruits, and vegetables that are super healthy and that, that you can serve regularly and not worry about it. Things like carrots and sweet potatoes that have higher levels are so nutritious that we don't want to scare parents away from that. You know, the idea there is keep serving them, but just don't serve them every single day and mix it up. So you're serving different, different things every day.

Katie Ferraro (40m 28s):

Okay. And this might be a dumb question, but you talked about like baby spinach related to bigger spits, right? So the longer the spinach has been growing on the vine or whatever spinach grows on the more potential for it to bioaccumulate heavy metals, but baby carrots, aren't technically baby carrots, right. They're just like shaved off of big carrots. So, but I mean, but like buying baby carrots, wouldn't be the solution to removing the heavy metals from carrots. But peeling carrots certainly is right.

Jane Houlihan (40m 49s):

I actually there's no, there aren't other studies on whether buying a small baby sweet potato is better than a big sweet potato. We just don't have the data to know. We just happened to have that data for spinach. So I, I wouldn't say we could say across the board at all, but that it's true for other vegetables only that one.

Katie Ferraro (41m 7s):

Well, I hope you guys enjoyed that interview with Charlotte Brody and Jane Houlihan from Healthy Babies, Bright Futures, a lot of really important topics that we went over today with a lot of actionable tips. So on the show notes page for this episode, I'm going to link to a lot of their resources, but in particular attention, I think the one that I want to draw your attention to is the 2019 report called what's in my baby food. This was big news when it came out, it's still big news. But if you did not have a baby of the age to be starting solid foods, you may have missed it or not paid particular attention to it. So the executive summary, it's a six page PDF. I'm gonna link to that on the show notes that has some really, really great ideas in it for showing how you can make some changes in order to reduce your baby's risk.

Katie Ferraro (41m 49s):

So that'll be on the show notes for this episode, go to BLW podcast.com/246. Thank you again to Charlotte and Jane. That's not the last that you'll be hearing of them, cause we're definitely going to help promote their new report that will be coming out in the summer of 2022 as soon as it is available. So BLW podcast.com/246. Thank you so much for listening. I'll see you next time.