What is the new AB 899 Baby Food Safety Law? What does it mean for your baby?
Table of Contents
OVERVIEW / TL;DR
What is this new law about lead in baby food?
A new law: AB899, went live in California on January 1, 2025 – and helps all parents. The law mandates that all baby food manufacturers (anyone marketing food for children under 2, with the exception of baby formula) who sell in California must test their products for Lead, Mercury, Cadmium, and Arsenic, and publish those results on their websites.
Maryland’s “Rudy’s Law”, requires the same of manufacturers, starting in 2025, and other states may follow.
So – even if you don’t live in Maryland or California, you can still look up the results for your baby’s food.
Why are they doing this?
Children – especially infants – are the most vulnerable to the effects of high amounts of heavy metals, which is why physicians, parents, and advocacy groups have been calling for more transparency for years.
- In 2021, a Congressional report uncovered “significant” levels of heavy metals in several top baby food brands.
- The FDA is the federal governing body that has the ability to make regulations on mandatory limits and recalls. However, while they have released “recommended guidance”, their Closer to Zero proposal, and hinted at mandates to come, it hasn’t happened….yet.
- So, states took it into their own hands. States cannot mandate levels nor issue recalls, but they CAN require transparency, which is what is happening.
Keep an eye out: The FDA *could* issue “Action Levels” (mandated levels, above which they can issue recalls) any week now. Subscribe to our No-Panic Parents free parents’ resource, and I’ll keep you updated.
Now, before you panic, if you look up your child’s food and it’s not zero.
There’s a pretty decent chance, that when you look up your child’s baby food, some of these numbers are not zero.
OK – but BREATHE. I got you.
Here’s why I don’t want you to be terrified.
While many baby foods do have *some* concentration of these metals in testing, the VAST majority of baby foods are BELOW any level that would have any medical impact. Yes, there are outliers – like a criminal case of what was likely food fraud leading to lead in apple sauce – these are what scare parents. But from data that I have received from baby food testing laboratories (see “So Give Me Actual Numbers”, below)- while there were some outliers, all of them were below action levels, and the top third of performers were often below “quantifiable” on their testing machines.
So, NO. This is NOT telling you that you have harmed your child by feeding them the food you thought was safe and healthy.
I promise.
I’m here to tell you how, in our complex world where food comes from many different sources, how to best choose their food (+also preserving your own sanity).
So, what do I do? 3 ways to protect your children and infants:
(1) Reduce intake, when possible. Previously, we parents couldn’t do this, because we had no IDEA how much of each was in our baby’s food. Now, with this new law, you can.
- Look-up the results for the foods you feed your baby (see “How to Look it Up“, below)
- Opt for brands that meet the Clean Label Project Purity Award, awarded to brands with the lowest levels of environmental toxins and contaminants. (their logo looks like this, and is placed on the food packaging)
(2) Diversify your child’s diet, period. When it comes to ANY food, for ANY age, I the surest path to safety, is diversity.
- Meaning, that if all your child eats is packages of baby food sweet potato, and apple sauce, ALL day long, then yes, they’re going to have higher levels of heavy metals. (though, to be reassuring, if your child eats these daily, they’re probably STILL well below concerning levels, so for those parents reading this and thinking “My child eats these every day, have I harmed them”, the answer is highly likely a resounding NO).
- But the beauty of a more diversified menu, is that even if ONE of those items has higher levels, the overall diet is balanced out.
- A good rule of thumb: don’t give your child more than 2-3 servings of the same kind of pre-made foods per day.
(3) Focus FIRST on a diet that is high in all beneficial nutrients, as opposed to ONLY focusing on zero heavy metals.
- If you ONLY focus on minimizing heavy metals, your child will miss out on the important, nutrient dense foods that we really want them to have. For instance, SURE, in a carrot, your child will ingest cadmium. But they’ll also ingest Vitamin C and folate and thiamine – and things that help their body eliminate and protect against heavy metals.
- Another example: having good iron intake means that your child’s body is also better able to absorb less Lead in the first place.
- Bottom line, focus first on giving your child a varied, nutrient rich diet (or as varied, nutrient rich as a toddler will allow), and minimizing heavy metals second.
From one parent (who feeds her youngest baby food) to another, having access to this information is a GOOD thing.
It empowers us as parents to know how to feed our children the best that we can, and to also advocate for our littlest ones.
THE DETAILS
What are heavy metals?
If you remember back to high school chemistry (yeah, it was a long time ago for me, too), heavy metals were a specific class of elements, named that way based on their density.
Image source: https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/periodic-table/
The difference between Essential and Non-essential Heavy Metals
- Some of these are essential for the human body like Iron, Zinc, and Copper (circled in blue) – although (like most things!), they can be toxic at higher concentrations.
- But then there are other heavy metals, such as Lead, Mercury, Arsenic, and Cadmium among others, (circled in red), that are not necessary for the human body, and – like the “essential” heavy metals, will also be toxic at higher concentrations.
- So, while for “essential heavy metals”, it’s important to find a balance of the right level, for the “non-essential heavy metals”, there’s no benefit to having them at all, and only risk, and hence why we want to minimize them.
Where do heavy metals come from?
Naturally-occurring: Heavy metals are naturally occurring in the earth and soil (Arsenic occurs in volcanic ash and geothermal springs, for instance, lead is present form the earth’s crust), which means that they can show up in our food through absorption into the food. As an example, certain parts of Michigan have naturally occurring high levels of Arsenic. Plus, certain foods, such as grains, root crops, chocolate, rice, and hemp, preferentially absorb lead, for instance.
Due to human activity: Human activity, specifically industrial activity, cause these elements to be released, ending up in higher levels in our foods. Industrial activities such as mining, fracking, the use of wastewater for irrigation, and industrial agriculture can cause the air, soil, and water to become increasing contaminated with heavy metals. (Of note, pesticides in the early/mid-1900s contained lead, but those haven’t been used in decades). Even having old buildings with lead paint or lead pipes can also increase the exposure. Food then grown with these elements will then have higher concentrations.
“Food Fraud”: Extremely rarely, heavy metals become higher due to a deliberate adding of an ingredient. This was likely the case in the situation of astronomically high levels of lead found in applesauce in 2023.
Why do we want to minimize ingestion of these?
For those “non-essential heavy metals”, since there’s no known *benefit* of them, and only risk, then we take the stand that “less is better”. Hence the FDA “Closer to zero” proposal.
The risks of heavy metals, when ingested in large amounts is that they can cause both acute (if a large enough amount ingested, which is extremely rare but possible) and long-term effects. Fetuses, infants, and children are the most vulnerable to these effects, which is why we want to be especially vigilant for them. These effects can include:
- Brain / nervous system: Learning difficulties, developmental delays, and problems with behavior, hearing, and speech. Can also lead to lower IQ and underperformance in school. This can also include seizures, and psychological changes.
- Blood disorders, including anemia.
- Cancer: increased risk of cancer.
- Bone, GI system, and kidney damage.
LOOKING IT UP: HOW TO DO IT
How do i actually look this up?
- NOTE: This is mandated for all foods produced in 2025. Some manufacturers are publishing the results of products tested in 2024, but not all. So, if your packet doesn’t have a code, or you get an error message, it’s likely that it was produced before the 2025 date.
How results are posted (and if they’re posting samples for 2024) depends on the manufacturer.
- Some manufacturers publish all of their testing results in one page (for instance, Plum Organics has all testing results for all of their pouches on THIS page).
- Others will have a QR code or “lot lookup code”, and you can go to their site and type it in there, to see the test results of THAT specific lot.
- If you can’t find EITHER, message us – [email protected] – and we’ll do our best to help.
Some manufacturers publish all of their test results
Source: Plum Organics (Accessed 1/7/2025)
Source: Square Baby (Accessed 1/7/2025)
Others have you look up your specific lot #
Source: Cerebelly (Accessed 1/7/2025)
Source: Cerebelly (shared with permission)
LOOKING IT UP: HOW TO INTERPRET THE RESULTS
So, give me the numbers – what levels should I want to see / when should I be alarmed?
OK, so now let’s talk numbers, so that you have context for the numbers you see when you look online.
A little terminology:
- Action levels: These are levels mandated by the FDA, above which the FDA will take action (including recalls). For instance, the FDA mandates that all bottled water must have less than 2 parts per billion (PPB) of lead.
- That’s useful – BUT the FDA has not released action levels on many things (including lead in baby food). They have given some recommended guidance – and they MAY come out with that this year, but we don’t. know for sure. (be sure to subscribe to our mailing list – if this is released, will let you know!). The good thing about action levels? They have built in anywhere from a 100 to 1000-fold safety buffer.
- Reference Dose (may also see used as Reference Level): The reference dose is lower than the action level, and essentially represents the amount that you can ingest per day, and still be under “dangerous” levels. For instance, the FDA “Interim Reference Level” proposed for lead gave a limit that if a child consumed that every single day, they would still have a blood lead level 10 times lower than the CDC’s blood level value for monitoring.
- For context, I’ve included amount in common foods, per the FDA Total Diet Study
- The 4th row is from the Clean Label Project, showing 2021 testing results of 356 baby food samples, from the top 85% products by sales volume
FAQs
should i only buy organic?
Not necessarily. The “Organic” label does not have any requirements for heavy metals testing. While some organic farms may make attempts to lower heavy metal exposure, there’s no guarantee or assurance.
should i make my own baby food?
Making your own food can reassure you that there were less preservatives or processing involved in the actual MAKING of the food, but, foods sold in grocery stores may still have the same levels of heavy metals as the baby foods. One test in the FDA TDS showed that sweet potato without peel had lower lead than in the tested baby food, but if you’re unable to make the food (or just don’t wish to), the easiest thing is to just purchase from brands that you know have lower levels of heavy metals (especially those that test the raw food materials, as that’s not something you and I are able to do at home).
And – even if you grow your OWN food – unless you literally test your own soil and water, you don’t know if the food you’re growing is actually lower than what was used in the baby food.
Bottom line – make your own baby food if you want – there are definite benefits to that – but don’t let this be the one thing that panic-forces you to do so.
| Lead | Mercury | Arsenic | Cadmium | |
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Action Levels |
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Reference Dose |
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Interim Reference Level:
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Levels of common foods, for context |
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Testing Results, Sample Baby Foods |
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(includes rice cereals + other foods) |
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HOW TO FIND MORE INFORMATION
The following organizations are doing GREAT work in this space (and I’m grateful for their help in contributing info to this page!)
- The Clean Label Project
- Michigan State University’s Center for Research on Ingredient Safety (their upcoming app will allow you to quantify your child’s exposure based on foods)
- Consumer Reports Information on Lead in Food (and a report to come)
Got Qs? Please send them our way! Email us at [email protected].
All my best,
- Dr. Darria
