Why We Test for Heavy Metals (And Why Every Baby Food Brand Should)

A few years ago, a congressional report made headlines that shook every parent to the core: popular baby food brands were found to contain concerning levels of heavy metals — arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury. Foods we trusted. Brands we bought without a second thought.

I remember reading that report while nursing my youngest. My stomach dropped. I looked at the jars in my pantry and thought: How do we not know what's in our baby's food?

That moment solidified something I'd already been feeling: transparency in baby food isn't optional. It's essential. And if the big brands weren't going to prioritize it, we would.

What Are Heavy Metals and Why Are They in Baby Food?

First, let's clear up a common misconception: heavy metals in food don't come from factories adding them in. They occur naturally in soil and water, and plants absorb them as they grow. This means that virtually all food — organic or conventional — contains trace amounts.

The four main ones we worry about in baby food are:

• Lead (Pb) — Can affect brain development and behavior, even at very low levels.
• Arsenic (As) — Found especially in rice-based foods. Long-term exposure is linked to developmental issues.
• Cadmium (Cd) — Accumulates in the body over time. Root vegetables tend to absorb more of it from soil.
• Mercury (Hg) — Most commonly associated with fish, but can also appear in other foods at low levels.

The issue isn't that these elements exist in food — that's unavoidable. The issue is how much is in the food, and whether brands are testing and being honest about it.

Why Babies Are More Vulnerable

This is the part that keeps me up at night. Babies and toddlers are disproportionately affected by heavy metals because:

• Their bodies are small — the same amount of a contaminant has a much bigger impact relative to their body weight.
• Their brains are developing rapidly — heavy metals can interfere with neurological development during this critical window.
• They eat the same foods repeatedly — a baby eating rice cereal twice a day is getting consistent exposure to whatever's in that cereal.

This is why testing isn't just a nice-to-have for baby food. It's a responsibility.

What We Do at Sooby

At Sooby, every recipe is independently tested by a third-party laboratory using ICP-MS (Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry) — the gold standard for detecting trace elements. We test for all four heavy metals: lead, arsenic, cadmium, and mercury.

And here's the part I'm most proud of: we publish the results.

You can see our full testing data on our Safety & Testing page. No hiding behind vague claims of "tested for safety" — we show you the actual numbers, compared against FDA reference levels where they exist.

Here's a snapshot of our most recent results (April 2026):

• Lead: < 5 ppb across all recipes (FDA limit: 10-20 ppb depending on food type)
• Mercury: < 5 ppb across all recipes
• Cadmium: < 5 ppb in most recipes (7.30 ppb in our beet recipe, which is natural for root vegetables)
• Arsenic: < 10 ppb across all recipes (FDA limit for infant rice cereal: 100 ppb)

We're not just meeting the FDA guidelines — we're significantly below them.

Why Don't All Brands Test?

Good question. Currently, the FDA doesn't require baby food manufacturers to test for heavy metals before selling their products. There are recommended limits (called "action levels"), but compliance is largely voluntary.

That means a brand can put baby food on the shelf without ever testing it for heavy metals. And many do exactly that.

Testing costs money. Publishing results takes courage — because what if the numbers aren't great? For a small company like Sooby, every dollar matters. But this is a cost we will never cut, because it directly affects the safety of our food and the trust of our families.

What Parents Can Do

You shouldn't need a chemistry degree to feed your baby safely. Here's what I recommend:

1. Ask brands for their testing data. If they can't or won't share it, that tells you something.
2. Vary your baby's diet. Different foods absorb different heavy metals from soil. A varied diet reduces the risk of overexposure to any single contaminant.
3. Be cautious with rice-based products. Rice tends to accumulate more arsenic than other grains. We use oats in our recipes instead, which typically have much lower arsenic levels.
4. Look for brands that test independently. In-house testing is fine, but third-party testing by an accredited lab is the gold standard.
5. Don't panic. The goal is to reduce exposure, not eliminate it entirely (which is impossible). Small, informed choices add up.

Our Promise

Every parent deserves to know exactly what's in their baby's food — not just the ingredients, but what those ingredients might carry with them from the soil they grew in. That's why we test. That's why we publish. And that's why we'll keep doing it with every batch.

Your baby's safety isn't a marketing decision for us. It's a promise from one parent to another.

Charlotte