Supermarket and corner shop shelves are awash with baby products reassuringly described as specially formulated and containing wholesome ingredients. These prepared foods may be convenient for parents too busy (or too lazy) to make their own, but do they live up to their boasts? And could they actually be bad for babies?
According to yesterday's Which? survey, many of the well-known brands contain high levels of added sugar, fruit juice and starch. Which? checked 420 foods and found 40% contained sugar or fruit juice, or both, 40% contained starch additives (to bulk out or texturise the food) and just under half the desserts contained some form of added sugar. Cow & Gate sage and turkey casserole, for example, contains more maltodextrin, a complex carbohydrate, than actual turkey and Sainsbury's Sunshine Banana has more maltodextrin and sugar than plain old banana.
Tim Laing, professor of food policy at Thames Valley University, is not surprised. "Babyfood manufacturers play a very brilliant and sophisticated game of taking regulations to the maximum, rather than listening to the will of the people, let alone the most progressive elements of nutritional thinking," he says. "Infant foods are a very emotive subject, not just because of a child's nutrition, but to build up brand loyalty with the parents, from the moment a child is born, encouraging brand loyalty.
"It may be perfectly legal to include sugars and fats in baby foods, but that does not mean it is desirable. Nutritionally, or from a long-term public health perspective."
Which? says the "tick boxes" on the front of most products, allegedly to help parents choose, are particularily worthless. For example, "no added sugar" does not cover fruit juice, which is high in natural sugars (and can also rot little teeth), and "no added salt" means next to nothing as salt levels are already strictly controlled by law. The same goes for a boast of "no preservatives" as, apart from vitamin C and other anti-oxidants to stop food going off, these are outlawed. The "no artificial colours" claim only tells you that the product is not breaking the law - artificial colours are banned in all baby foods.
So how does the industry defend adding these ingredients to products? "If you wiped all the prepared baby foods off the shelves tomorrow, a lot of people would not make their own and adult foods are not nutritionally suitable," says Heather Page, spokesperson for the Infant and Dietetic Foods Association, which represents some of the baby food manufacturers. She says the report ignores how well controlled the industry is. Baby foods, says Page, are nutritionally appropriate and convenient. And babies simply cannot cope with adult diets. Infant foods are tightly governed by law and strictly regulated when it comes to sugar and salt.
But parents need to be able to make an informed choice, rather than running scared, argues Sara Stanner, a nutritionist from the British Nutrition Foundation. She advises parents to find out what the information on labels actually means.
"Low amounts of sugar is not a problem. But people don't realise all those words that end in ose - maltose, dextrose and so on - are sugar derivatives. It's very difficult. People should be better informed about what to look for but products won't be on the shelves unless they conform to strict regulations. Look on the back, not the front. It's all there, but people sometimes don't know what it means."
Sucrose, glucose, dextrose, syrup and honey, fruit syrups and fruit juice concentrates are all types of sugar to look out for on labels. You will find them on the backs of products, not flagged up on the front, unlike the seductive yet meaningless phases designed to catch parent's eyes.
Stanner offers some comfort: "I wouldn't like people to think that the only way to feed young children healthily is by buying organic products or preparing their own food."
The National Childbirth Trust, a zealous advocate of breastfeeding for the first six months, agrees. It urges parents to "check, check and check again" if worried about the contents of prepared infant foods. "If you make it yourself, you know what's in it - and you'll save money," says Janice Muir, NCT spokeswoman. "But we understand that people face a lot of time pressure when they have got a young baby and would not want to land a load of guilt on them if they don't make up food themselves."
