Concerned about Heavy Metals in Baby Food?
While heavy metal contamination of foods, particularly those for infants, has been known about for years, recent events have once again brought it to public attention.
On February 4th the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy published a report calling for more rigorous regulatory standards and testing for the toxic elements arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury in baby foods. This comes as the Baby Food Council – a coalition of food manufacturers, consumer advocacy groups, and scientists from academia and government agencies – is also working to develop and implement best practices to reduce these contaminants in infant food.
Brooks Applied Labs (BAL) is proud to have supported efforts to identify and reduce heavy metals exposures from the food supply for over a decade. BAL is currently one of only two commercial laboratories in the United States to meet the Baby Food Council’s independently-developed criteria for testing food for metals contamination. We also are industry leaders in the application of speciation analysis – the measurement of specific molecular forms of an element (e.g., inorganic arsenic or methylmercury) – to more fully characterize health risks and determine how to remove these toxic elements from foods as well as the water, soil, and nutrients involved in their production.
To learn more about Brooks Applied Labs’ testing services for food or other sample types, please contact us today!