Know Your Wild Foods Baby Food

A word of caution for parents who make their own baby food. In a previous article I discuss chickweed. You may be thinking it's packed with nutrients, why not add to baby food? Chickweed like corn, celery, miner's lettuce, and many other plants, will accumulate nitrates under the right conditions. Nitrates can inhibit an infants ability to breath oxygen. Nitrates will accumulate in the plant where there have been nitrate based fertilizers in the soil and the plant has been under a variety of stresses. Since there is no real way of knowing the amount if any nitrates the plant may have, it is best to avoid using these plants for baby food in infants under 1 year of age. Nitrates can be properly metabolized in humans over 1 year of age.