Baby jars in the ÖKO-TEST: Six porridges get good marks
Parents only want the best for their little ones. Therefore, trust in brands that offer baby food in jars must be all the greater. Pollutants have no place in food. However, the ÖKO-TEST result shows that no product is flawless.
The start of complementary feeding is not only a new exciting time for babies, you will also learn a lot about your offspring. Carrot tastes good, but parsnip is absolutely not eaten. If you don’t cook yourself or if you just want to be quick, baby porridge in a jar is an alternative and the selection of flavors has now become very large. There is something for every sprout. As a parent, you should be able to rely on the fact that the baby food is free of harmful substances.
In the current test, ÖKO-TEST examined 20 vegetable pulps for babies for ingredients. These include 18 organic products from dm, Edeka, Alnatura, HiPP and Alete as well as two products from Bebivita. The result shows: No product received the grade “very good” and the questionable substance furan was found in all the jars.
Baby jars: no product with “very good” because of furan
Furan is classified as a possible carcinogen by the World Health Organization. Furan is formed when vegetables are heated. When cooking at home, the substance escapes into the air, but in industrial production this is not possible due to the direct sterilization of the ready-made jars. It is reassuring that none of the values found is acutely dangerous. Nevertheless, it has no place in baby food. A tip: If the porridge is heated with the lid open and stirred at the same time, the load can be reduced.
The furan values measured in six of the vials tested were very low, giving them the grade “good” . These include three organic vegetable porridges from the Alnatura brand , such as carrots with potatoes and beef, Rossmann’s own brand Babydream parsnips with rice and turkey, Dm organic fennel parsnips with couscous and chicken, and Edeka organic parsnips with potatoes and beef. HiPP and Alete only receive the grade “satisfactory” or even the grade “sufficient” because of increased furan values. The latter, for example, are deliberately made for Alete with spaghetti in vegetable cream with turkey and HiPP vegetable rice with organic chicken.
The loser is the Bebivita brand: in addition to increased furan values, the addition of iron diphosphate from artificial sources was also discovered.
Read the detailed test in the current issue of ÖKO-TEST
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