Your Health

ABC – Arsenic in Baby Cereal?

Help make ABC stand for All Babies Celebrate!

Some of the most common snacks for babies are rice based. That’s because it’s mild in flavor and easy for tiny tummies to digest. But, rice is also one of the foods that has the highest concentration of arsenic. This just has to do with the way that rice grows – it’s really good at absorbing arsenic from the environment around it – but there should be other options for baby food.


By adding your name to this petition started by our friends at Healthy Babies Bright Futures, you can tell Gerber that you want them to lead the way in setting lower standards for arsenic in baby cereal.

Gerber is one of the leaders in producing baby food and has already taken some steps indicating they know arsenic is present in rice cereals by removing their brown rice cereal from the market. That’s because brown rice has higher arsenic levels than white rice. Arsenic from rice cereal is the number one source of arsenic in a baby’s world, so making strides in arsenic levels in cereal can have a huge impact on a baby’s development. Arsenic affects the way a child’s brain grows and develops, so it’s important to limit how often they come into contact with it. Sign the petition now, and ask Gerber to step it up.