Baby McDonalds? Jars of food add little to diet, study finds

Commercial baby foods offer little nutritional benefit over breast milk, and babies would get more out of homemade purees than from a jar, a study has found.(canvas prints photo on canvas canvas prints australia)

Researchers looked at more than 450 products for infants being weaned off breast milk. They found that 50 grams of homemade baby food would probably have the same energy and protein as 100 grams of the commercial food. Their findings were published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Food used to wean babies is meant to increase the energy children consume and provide richer sources of nutrients such as iron, the researchers said. Commercial foods with meat had the highest iron content though no higher than formula milk and not much higher than vegetarian-based commercial food, they said. Commercial rusks and biscuits had more energy and higher amounts of calcium and iron than homemade foods as well as more sugar, the study found.

"People buy processed food because of convenience, but people should understand what's in it," Charlotte Wright, a paediatrician who worked on the study, said.

Two-thirds of the commercial foods studied were classified as sweet, and 44 per cent were advertised for infants aged four months or older. The World Health Organization recommends introducing children to solid food at six months.

The food studied was made by Danone SA's Cow & Gate, H.J. Heinz, Boots, Hipp Organic, Ella's Kitchen and Organix Brands.

Health professionals should advise families to progress to homemade weaning foods prepared without salt and sugar, particularly later in the first year of life, the researchers said.

"Just as you wouldn't live on McDonald's every day, that's how baby jars should be viewed," said Professor Wright, who works in community child health at the University of Glasgow in Scotland.

Organix managing director Anna Rosier said that some parents wanted to wean their infants before six months and Organix made clear which foods were suitable for that age.

"All of our foods are complementary to breastfeeding, and we adhere to the regulations for complementary foods for babies," she said.

"We do not make foods with the purpose to replace breast milk as the primary source of nutrition before six months."

Spokeswoman for Nestle Meike Schmidt said the European Union and the American Academy of Paediatrics had both said commercial food could be added as a compliment to a milk diet as early as four months, if the child was developmentally ready.