More children were apparently sickened by apple puree pouches recently recalled due to dangerous lead contamination, the Food and Drug Administration said.
The agency has received 52 reports of elevated lead levels among children who reportedly consumed the products, which is up from 34 cases reported last week. The reports span 22 states and involve children between the ages of 1 to 4, according to the FDA’s online update on the investigation.
The pouches were marketed to parents and children under three brands: WanaBana apple cinnamon fruit puree and Schnucks and Weis cinnamon applesauce pouches. They were sold by national grocery chains, including Dollar Tree, and online retailers such as Amazon.
The FDA said it is still working with Dollar Tree to get the recalled products off of shelves in several states.
There is a point where some fruits are more dangerous than others to give a toddler, such as grapes.
I made a lot of purees with a hand mixer. On the weekend I would batch cook and bulk freeze a lot of different purees before they could have solid food.
You don’t have to use everything fresh, you can use frozen fruits/veggies and even do Passata - Strained Tomatoes no salt added. We had concerns about the level of salt in premade foods so we made our own on the weekend and froze it all in ice trays then put it in zip locks. Low sodium lentil soups are ok too.
It ended up being a lot cheaper just to spend an hour on the weekend batch cooking for the kid and batch cooking for lunches to take to work.
Finally I got a little plastic masher and used that, as soon as they were old enough do it themselves. They wouldn’t eat anything they mashed at first but they loved playing with it.
Now they just grab apples and other fruit straight from the fridge.
Our doctor said not to give them juice or fruit packs at all. The doctor did say chocolate milk mixed with regular milk is a good treat that’s safe and hydrating tho.