Baby foods loaded with sugar

NEARLY half the baby foods sold in shops are packed with tooth-damaging sugar and are bulked up with starch, research by an international consumers' group and the Sunday Morning Post has found.

About 40 per cent of foods - including savoury meals - contain sugar or sweet fruit juice, and the same proportion have starch additives that can pad out a meal so there is less 'real' food in it, the British Consumers' Association said after studying 420 baby foods.

The Post checked the labels of the most popular brands in Hong Kong, with similar results.

Heinz Tutti-Frutti dessert contains more sugar and more corn starch than fruit, and the spaghetti with meat sauce, which has more tomato than spaghetti or beef, also contains added salt and corn starch.

'Sweet foods may encourage a sweet tooth, and it's important to avoid sugars to help prevent tooth decay when the first teeth start coming through,' the association's Which? magazine said. 'Some sugars can damage teeth; this includes 'natural' sugars in fruit juice which are released in processing, and sugar in honey.' The consumer association also recommended against buying baby food containing starch, gums or maltodextrin.

'These additives can stop food separating out but critics feel that because they absorb water, this can pad out the meal so there's less 'real' food in it,' the association said.

In other popular baby food brands available here, the Post found that Gerber's banana apple dessert has added sugar, corn starch and orange juice, and its vegetable beef meal contains rice flour, wheat flour and potato flour.