Cassava-Based Puffs From Lesser Evil and Serenity Kids Contain High Levels of Lead
The Lesser Evil puffs have among the most of any baby food ever tested by CR, while sorghum-based snacks from Once Upon a Farm have among the least
Update: Lesser Evil announced on June 13, 2024, that it would phase out the use of cassava flour in its Lil’ Puffs line of products, saying it was "dismayed by the recent news" that some of its products had concerning levels of lead.
It can be hard to get little kids to eat their vegetables, and to find an appealing snack that’s not loaded with sugar. Enter veggie puffs. They feature ingredients like beets, carrots, potatoes, and tomatoes—one manufacturer promises they’ll make kids “actually get excited” about vegetables.
Of course, these snacks don’t pack the same nutritional punch as whole vegetables. But there’s a bigger concern: Some may have high levels of lead or other dangerous heavy metals.
Puffs and other kid snacks made with rice, for example, can be high in arsenic, as CR’s previous tests have shown. Partly as a result, some manufacturers now make puffs with other starches as the main ingredient, including cassava or sorghum. Both are gaining popularity among people trying to avoid grains (cassava is a root) or gluten (sorghum is a gluten-free grain).
Consumer Reports was alerted to concerns about lead in cassava by Tamara Rubin, the owner of Lead Safe Mama, a company focused on preventing lead poisoning and helping parents identify possible sources of lead exposure. Rubin, who sounded the alarm on lead in Bindle Bottles and Stanley Tumblers, had also found high levels of lead in some cassava-based snacks, including Serenity Kids puffs.
Given CR’s history of testing baby food, we wanted to see how lead in these puffs compared with what we had found in other baby foods. So we tested four cassava puff products made by Lesser Evil and Serenity Kids, and two sorghum puff products from Once Upon a Farm.
While we detected arsenic and cadmium in all of them and mercury in one, none had levels high enough to pose significant risks. But in both Lesser Evil products and one product from Serenity Kids, we did find concerning amounts of lead. In fact, Lesser Evil’s Lil’ Puffs Intergalactic Voyager Veggie Blend puffs had more lead per serving than any of the 80 baby foods CR has tested since 2017.
“We think kids should consume less than half a serving a day of those,” says James E. Rogers, PhD, head of food safety testing at CR.
For the other two puffs with high lead levels—Lesser Evil’s Lil’ Puffs Sweet Potato Apple Asteroid and Serenity Kids’ Tomato & Herb, Bone Broth puffs (the product Rubin had tested)—CR’s experts say the limit is 1.5 servings per day.
And Rogers says, “The serving sizes of these puffs are smaller than a parent may realize.” A half-serving of Lesser Evil’s Lil’ Puffs Intergalactic Voyager Veggie Blend (also sold as Voyager Veggie Blend Puffs) is just 17 puffs. A container of Serenity Kids puffs holds just 1 ½ ounces, and the label says it contains six servings. “Try telling that to the toddlers who, if given the chance, can eat an entire container in one sitting,” Rogers says.
CR’s test results stand in contrast to the image the brands portray in their marketing. Lesser Evil’s tagline is “Simple Acts, Clean Snacks,” and the phrase “clean ingredients” is peppered throughout its website. Serenity Kids’ motto is “All of the good, none of the bad.”
Unlike the cassava-based puffs, the two sorghum products from Once Upon a Farm had very low levels of lead—in fact, they had some of the lowest lead levels of all the baby foods we’ve ever tested.
“Clearly, some manufacturers need to do a better job of keeping heavy metals out of their snack foods, and there may be some particular concerns about foods made with cassava,” Rogers says. He points out that while the Food and Drug Administration recently proposed limits for lead and other heavy metals in some categories of baby food, snack foods weren’t included. “The agency needs to take a hard look at the snacks parents feed their children, and make sure they don’t have dangerous levels of lead and other contaminants.”
In the meantime, if you’ve been giving your child cassava puffs, there’s reason for concern but not panic, Rogers says. These levels are a fraction of those in the apple cinnamon fruit pouches that caused lead poisoning in hundreds of children last year, for instance.
Still, the amounts we found were worrisome and, over time, could raise the risk of developmental problems in children, such as lower IQ, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and autism. “You have to account for the fact that small amounts of lead can add up and that children may be exposed to some lead in drinking water or their environment,” Rogers says. “That’s why foods with more lead should be minimized in a child’s diet.”
Here’s what you need to know about cassava-based puff snacks and how to minimize the heavy metals in your child’s diet.
0.5 serving per day
1.5 servings per day
1.5 servings per day
5.5 servings per day
The Root of the Problem
Some studies have shown that cassava and other root vegetables—such as sweet potatoes, carrots, and beets—can have high lead levels. Angelia Seyfferth, PhD, in the department of plant and soil sciences at the University of Delaware, explains that lead, which can occur naturally in soil or end up there due to pollution, tends to accumulate in a plant’s root system. “Lead can’t move very well beyond the root itself, so it doesn’t get into the above-ground portion of the plant,” she says.
In many parts of the world cassava—aka yuca and manioc—is a staple and eaten in many of the same ways as potatoes. Processing it into flour to bake it into crackers, chips, or snack foods can potentially concentrate the lead more than eating it fresh.
Photo: Getty Images Photo: Getty Images
Lesser Evil and Serenity Kids told CR that they regularly test their raw ingredients and final products for heavy metals and that they stand behind the safety of their products.
Jennie Shen, director of brand marketing for Serenity Kids, says that the company “is always working with our suppliers to reduce the heavy metal content of our products,” but notes that “heavy metals are prevalent in our food system.” And Sami Rosnov, chief of operations at Corner Market Communications, which represents Lesser Evil, says that lead occurs in nature “due to years of pollution and contamination in our water and soil.”
Emily Luna, baby brand manager at Once Upon a Farm—a company co-founded by actress Jennifer Garner—says that the company chose sorghum as the main ingredient for its puffs in part because it was less likely to contain heavy metals than rice or cassava. “It starts with product design,” says Luna, and then “sourcing strategies become the second pillar in heavy metal controls.” For ingredients, like carrots or sweet potatoes that are also known to have the potential for heavy metals, the company tries to source “ingredients from areas worldwide that have reduced risk.”
Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports
Heavy Metals, Light Oversight
The FDA has set limits for only two foods that babies and toddlers eat: infant rice cereals and apple juice. And those action levels, as they are referred to by the agency, are only for arsenic, not other heavy metals.
The agency has proposed limits for other heavy metals, including lead, in some baby and toddler foods. But those levels are not finalized, are higher than what CR’s experts think they should be, and don’t include snack foods.
“Our current tests, combined with our previous ones, show the FDA needs to act with urgency on its Closer to Zero initiative, which is meant to reduce childhood exposure to these environmental contaminants,” says Brian Ronholm, head of food policy at CR. “The risk to children will only increase if the agency allows this work to languish.”
The FDA tells CR that it will finalize its limits on lead in baby foods this year and on lead in fruit juices in 2025 but is still determining how to regulate heavy metals in snack foods. The agency also says that in the meantime it can take action against manufacturers selling products with high lead levels.
A bill introduced recently in Congress, the Baby Food Safety Act of 2024, would require the FDA to set levels for heavy metals and give the agency more authority to enforce those limits. Some states are also acting. For example, a new California law requires manufacturers to test baby foods sold in the state for arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury. Starting next year, companies with products that exceed the FDA’s limits will have to make those results publicly available. Maryland passed a similar law in April.
What Parents Can Do
A few servings a week of a food that’s on the higher side for lead won’t pose immediate risks to your child. But it’s a good idea to minimize the amount of heavy metals in your family’s diet when you can, especially because your child may be exposed to lead and other heavy metals from the air, water, or other foods. And there are plenty of alternatives low in heavy metals.
Serve packaged baby snacks sparingly. This includes not just puffs but bars, rice crisps, teething biscuits, cookies, and other highly processed snacks. Potential heavy metal contamination aside, most packaged snack foods aren’t very healthy for children anyway, says Maya Vadiveloo, PhD, professor of nutrition at the University of Rhode Island. What fruits and vegetables they do contain are often in powder form, and “when you extract foods from their whole food sources, they don’t have the same benefits,” she says.
Emphasize whole foods low in heavy metals. These include oats and other whole grains (except rice), apples, applesauce (unsweetened), avocados, bananas, butternut squash, green beans, peaches, strawberries, baby food meats, eggs, beans, cheese, and yogurt. If babies are just learning to eat solids and choking might be a worry, any of these can be cooked, puréed, or mashed before serving. The more babies are introduced to a wide variety of tastes and textures from developmentally appropriate whole foods, early in life, the broader their palate for healthy foods will be as they grow up, Vadiveloo says. Additionally, a diet that provides a variety of nutrients—such as calcium, iron, selenium, vitamin C, and zinc—may help offset some of the damage heavy metals can do to the body.
Go easy on the fruit juice. Past CR tests found inorganic arsenic and lead in many apple and grape juice brands. In addition, all fruit juices are concentrated sources of sugars and lack fiber. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends not giving fruit juice to babies in the first year of life and limiting juice to 4 ounces a day for kids ages 1 to 3 years and 6 ounces for 4- to 6-year-olds for nutritional reasons.
Don’t ditch healthy foods. Rice, fresh cassava, sweet potatoes, carrots, and other root vegetables can be high in heavy metals, but they can be essential sources of nutrients in kids’ diets. You don’t have to eliminate them. Instead, serve them in rotation with various vegetables and whole grains.
@consumerreports Lesser Evil and Serenity Kids told CR that they regularly test their raw ingredients and final products for heavy metals and that they stand behind the safety of their products. Read our full investigation through the link in our bio. Special thanks to Tamara Rubin, owner of @leadsafemama_2022, for her great work in lead prevention and alerting us of this issue. foodtok foodsafety
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