Lesson 12 of 18

You'll see where lead in food actually comes from, and why "organic" doesn't change the number.

  • Why lead in baby food traces to soil and water, not pesticides
  • Which ingredients and formats run higher (rice, bars) vs. cleaner
  • How to look up test results for specific brands and products
Test your water service line
Watch first: Test your water service line
Worked example converting parts-per-billion in food to micrograms and blood lead increase
From food to blood levelA worked example: how ppb in a food becomes micrograms consumed, and what that adds to a child's blood lead. From the Lead Framework →
← The Lead Safe Journey
The Toolkit · DetectLead
§ AB 899 PUBLIC DATA · UPDATED 2026-04-26

What's in your baby's food?

California passed a law forcing baby food companies to publish lot-level heavy-metal tests. I scraped over 20,000 of them. Search by brand or product. Sort any column.

≥20 ppb (critical) 10–20 ppb (high) 5–10 ppb (moderate) <5 ppb detected non-detect
Brand Product # lots Pb avg Pb max As max Cd max
What this means → Detectable lead in baby food is mostly from soil and water, not pesticides. Organic doesn't fix it. Brands using whole grains, sweet potato, carrots, and brown rice tend to test higher than refined-ingredient brands. Read the full analysis → · Test your own kitchen with FluoroSpec →
5 worst brands by average lead
Ranked by weighted average lead (ppb) across all tested lots. Brands with more lots get proportionally more weight.
  1. 1 Yumi 42.0 ppb avg  ·  65.8 ppb max  ·  5 products  ·  8 lots
  2. 2 Babylife Organics 11.0 ppb avg  ·  84.0 ppb max  ·  48 products  ·  78 lots
  3. 3 Puffworks 9.5 ppb avg  ·  20.8 ppb max  ·  4 products  ·  66 lots
  4. 4 Amara 8.2 ppb avg  ·  26.0 ppb max  ·  10 products  ·  63 lots
  5. 5 Nestum / Cerelac 6.5 ppb avg  ·  14.0 ppb max  ·  6 products  ·  149 lots
Worst ingredients by average lead
It is not the brand, it is the crop. The same ingredients come up high across every brand, because the lead is in the soil the plant grew in. Weighted average lead (ppb), AB 899 disclosures.
  1. 1Rice & rice cereal9.9 ppb avg
  2. 2Cinnamon4.6 ppb avg
  3. 3Beet4.3 ppb avg
  4. 4Spinach3.8 ppb avg
  5. 5Sweet potato & root veg
    Where the lead actually comes from: water
    If you watched the video above, you already know the short version. Lead almost never comes from the water source itself, it comes from the service line running to your house and the pipes and fixtures inside it. Older homes and older cities still have lead service lines and lead solder, and every time water sits in that line overnight it picks up a little lead before it ever hits your tap.
    1. Run the cold tap for a minute before you drink it or use it for cooking, especially first thing in the morning.
    2. Use a filter certified to remove lead (look for NSF/ANSI 53 on the box), not just a basic carbon filter.
    3. Get your service line checked. A lot of water utilities will tell you what it's made of, or test it, for free or cheap.
    4. If you make formula with tap water, this matters even more. Formula mixed with lead-contaminated water is a direct, daily exposure for an infant, on top of anything already in the food itself.
    Where the lead actually comes from: soil
    The soil right around an older house is its own exposure source, separate from the food and separate from the water. Decades of old exterior paint chipping and weathering off the house, plus decades of leaded gasoline exhaust settling out of the air, built up lead in the top few inches of dirt near the foundation (the "dripline") and along old roads. That soil doesn't go anywhere on its own.
    1. Kids play in that dirt, get it on their hands, and put their hands in their mouths. That's the exposure path, not eating dirt on purpose.
    2. Cover bare soil near the house with mulch, grass, or gravel so it's not just exposed dirt kids and pets track around.
    3. Wipe shoes and feet before coming inside, and wash hands after outside play, before meals.
    4. Wash produce, especially anything grown close to an older house or a busy road, since garden soil in those spots carries the same legacy lead.
    3.4 ppb avg
Food types, worst to cleanest
The processed, concentrated formats run highest. Single-ingredient pouches, cereals and dinners run lowest. Weighted average lead (ppb).
  1. 1Bars6.9 ppb avg
  2. 2Teethers5.7 ppb avg
  3. 3Puffs & snacks5.2 ppb avg
  4. 4Pouches & blends2.3 ppb avg
  5. 5Cereal & dinners2.1 ppb avg
This is only baby food.
Your kid eats more than what is in a jar. The Dietary Lead Simulator takes every food and serving they actually eat and adds it into one real number, micrograms of lead per day, plus an estimated blood-lead level for a child.
Score the whole diet at bloodleadcalculator.com →
Test the home, not just the headline.
A lot number tells you about food that already shipped. Most lead in a child comes from the house anyway, paint, old cookware, glazed dishes. One drop of FluoroSpec on the paint or the dish, thirty seconds, it glows green if there is lead.
$75  $40.50  with code LUCKY46 (46% off)
Get the FluoroSpec kit →
lead database / baby food (48,279 records) →

the unified-database view: 47,802 AB 899 lots plus 477 records from HBBF, NYC, king county, pure earth, and FDA. all categorized, all downloadable.

What you now know

The three things this lesson leaves you with.

  • A California law (AB 899) forces baby food makers to publish lot-level heavy metal tests
  • Lead in baby food mostly comes from soil and water, so organic doesn't lower it
  • Rice tests highest of any ingredient; single-ingredient pouches and dinners test lowest

Quick check

Three questions to make it stick. Your answers carry into the final exam at the end.

1. According to this page, where does the detectable lead in baby food mostly come from?

The page states detectable lead is mostly from soil and water, not pesticides.

2. Which ingredient tested highest for average lead on this page?

Rice and rice cereal topped the ingredient list at 9.9 ppb average.

3. Which food format tended to test cleanest for lead?

Cereal and dinners came in lowest on the food type list at 2.1 ppb average.