Annual U.S. sales of baby food and infant formula hit around $10 billion in 2022. The convenience makes these packaged meals enormously appealing if you don't have the time to prepare infants’ meals.

But recent reports may inspire you to make some adjustments to your baby's menu.

A June 2023 Consumer Reports study of 50 national brands of baby food found that 68% had a worrisome level of cadmium, inorganic arsenic, and/or lead, which are known to damage development. Fifteen of them posed potential health risks to a child regularly eating just one serving or less a day.

Snacks and products containing rice and/or sweet potatoes were the most likely to be polluted with the metals.

Then a July study found that for every square centimeter of plastic container or bag of baby food you microwave, 2 billion nanoplastics and 4 million microplastics are released into the contents.

That sounds like way too much for infants and toddlers to safely ingest.

In a laboratory test, three-quarters of cultured embryonic kidney cells died after two days of being exposed to high levels of those same particles. (And these hazards are in addition to the testosterone- and estrogen-destroying chemicals that leach from plastic and from can and jar liners even without microwaving.)

Prepared at home and never microwaved in plastic, your best bets for foods free of heavy metals and other toxins are fresh or frozen fruit, green beans, peas, butternut squash, peeled cucumber, bananas, grits, baby food brand meats, lamb, apples, pork, eggs, oranges, and watermelon.