> Well according to the article, a safe level of inorganic arsenic is 100ppb according to the FDA and zero of the baby foods they tested exceeded that.

Thank you, finally something substantial to start going by. Now two questions: Is what the FDA says consensus among the scientific community, and what about e.g. lead and cadmium?

> I'd also like to point out that heavy metals are natural, and whether a food product is allowed to be sold as 'natural' has no bearing on the amount of heavy metals present.

I understand, and I don‘t care. Whether it is considered „natural“ or not, whether it comes from soil or from anywhere else, has no bearing on the development of a brain. The only thing I care about is whether the levels are safe or not. However it got to that level: If it’s safe, good. If not, then it’s bad, and measures have to be taken.

This „any amount is bad“ does not help. Obviously there is at least a rough limit of lead per day consumed that will not significantly affect a developing brain, vs. an amount that does. I am interested in that limit, and whether it is exceeded here or not.

It’s really not a difficult concept. They might be right, you might be right, but so far I see nothing at all to convince me of either. I know how parts per billion work, I do not know what quantities of lead affect brain development or not.

> No amount of lead is safe according the the WHO and USA government. Zero. That's the problem. Its not the level its what should be deemed normal amount vs not normal. And these PPB amounts are really low as is.

The original text says the proposed limit would be between 5 ppb vs. 15 ppb. Would that be a reasonable limit? Is that being exceeded here?

There must be some level that makes sense. We can’t let obviously contaminated soil with lead levels that will definitely cause cognitive issues be acceptable, so where is the line.

> The fact the manufactures say there doing a good job, you might have to believe them until proven otherwise.

Why would I care about what the manufacturer thinks or says? I care about whether the levels of heavy metal are safe or not.

I don’t understand why I’m downvoted. How is this a controversial opinion? I want to know whether the amount of lead in the food, no matter whether that lead comes from soil or anywhere else, is harmful or not.

But soil itself has different amounts of lead. For example, some soil is still contaminated by the use of leaded fuel which has been banned for a while now. The question is not where the lead comes from, but whether the level is considered acceptable or not. A developing brain does not care whether unsafe amounts of lead come from soil or somewhere else. That is the only question I’m interested in settling here: Are these amounts unsafe or not.

So what are the safe levels, and are they exceeded here or not? I’m aware that there may be trace amount of heavy metals in even (or especially) the most natural food, but I’m also aware that some circumstances in manufacturing lead to levels that are decidedly over that.

> > The more you eat of a given food, the more metals from that food build up in your system.

> This is a high-school level of understanding of biomagnification. It doesn't work like that.

Well, how does it work then? The statement does not say there is a linear relationship or anything else like that, just that “the more you eat, the more metals will accumulate”. Unless the function is not monotonic, which seems unlikely (at some point the amount of metals accumulated will be less?), this seems like a true statement. Maybe too trivially so to be relevant, but true nonetheless.

I wish your comment was more constructive. It contains a lot of criticisms, without any of the actual substance of how things purportedly are. As a parent, I am willing to consider what you say, but with just “no wrong” there’s not much to go on by here?

> as no baby is sucking down liters of the same baby food every day, but it is something that should get more attention.

My baby is too young to be interested in drinking any amount of water. We try, but he does not accept it. This is normal for that age. So he ends up eating amounts of similar baby foods every day. Not liters, but still a lot compared to his body weight.

Once again, I’m not sure what to make of this. If my baby does “suck down” large amounts of the same baby food every day, should we be worried or not?