Non-Root Vegetable Purees
This page is a structural scaffold for HMTc Category 1 row 8. Quantitative evidence now includes FDA compliance non-root vegetable samples, a small leguminous-vegetable baby-food distribution, and broader UK green/other vegetable category values.
Heavy Metal Index pages are written for several audiences at once. Each entry point below names where to start if you are reading this page with a specific question in mind.
- Brand legal and regulatory affairs
- Cherry-pick attack vectors on non-root vegetable purees typically center on lead and cadmium in leafy greens (spinach, kale) where uptake varies by soil pH and irrigation-water quality. Source provenance and regional context are the defensive core. Compare with Root Vegetable Purees for the within-pair sibling. The cited sources at the bottom of this page are the citations list, written to be quoted into a Daubert brief without further editing.
- Retailer quality and compliance
- The Federal / Regulatory Limits vs Field Findings section compares the applicable regulatory cap to cited field evidence on a like-for-like basis, with basis conversion shown when conversion is well-defined and a methodology anchor when speciation differs. The Literature Evidence Summary gives source count and confidence rating per analyte.
- Brand QA and product development
- Use the Lab Result Comparator to position a single lab value inside the cited literature. The comparator positions a single lab value inside the cited literature for non-root vegetable purees, against the FDA 2025 10 ppb baby-food lead cap.
- Regulators, journalists, and adversarial readers
- Every numeric claim on this page traces to a source page. The Evidence Governance note explains what this page is and is not (literature evidence, not HMT&C certification thresholds).
- HMT&C staff (internal)
- The threshold-selection arithmetic (percentile statistics, clean / dirty subcategory designation, CC eligibility) lives on the staff workbench snapshot at non-root-vegetable-purees, not on this public page.
This is the fast comparison view for standards developers, regulators, retailers, brands, and legal teams. It shows the applicable federal or regulatory limit next to the current field-evidence state. It is not an HMTc pass/fail table; technical distributions remain in the evidence sections below.
| Metal | Federal / regulatory limit | Actual field finding | Decision read | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| lead (Pb) | fda2025-lead-processed-baby-foods: Federal FDA final action level: 10 ug/kg Pb. Scope: fruits; vegetables excluding single-ingredient root vegetables; mixtures including grain- and meat-based mixtures; yogurts; custards/puddings; single-ingredient meats for children under 2. Basis: as sold or ready-to-eat as applicable. | FDA non-root vegetable baby-food samples: Pb p90 2 ppb, max 7.6 ppb. Parker 2022 leguminous-vegetable baby foods: Pb mean 2.3 ppb, median 1.5 ppb, max 5 ppb. | Loaded product-row values are below the FDA 10 ppb action level where comparable, but the HMTc row-standard aggregate still needs a second fit distribution-capable source. | fda2025-lead-processed-baby-foods; fda2024-toxic-elements-baby-food-compliance-2009-2024; parker2022-baby-food-arsenic-cadmium-lead-mercury-risk |
| lead (Pb) | eu2023-contaminants-maximum-levels: EU European Commission maximum level: 20 ug/kg Pb. Scope: baby food and processed cereal-based food for infants and young children, except covered infant drinks and formula/medical foods. Basis: product as placed on market. | FDA non-root vegetable baby-food samples: Pb p90 2 ppb, max 7.6 ppb. Parker 2022 leguminous-vegetable baby foods: Pb mean 2.3 ppb, median 1.5 ppb, max 5 ppb. | Loaded product-row values are below the EU 20 ppb maximum where comparable, but the HMTc row-standard aggregate still needs a second fit distribution-capable source. | eu2023-contaminants-maximum-levels; fda2024-toxic-elements-baby-food-compliance-2009-2024; parker2022-baby-food-arsenic-cadmium-lead-mercury-risk |
| cadmium (Cd) | eu-2023-915-cadmium: EU European Commission maximum level: 40 ug/kg Cd. Scope: baby food and processed cereal-based food for infants and young children. Basis: product as placed on market. | FDA non-root vegetable baby-food samples: Cd p50 0.7 ppb, p90 12.8 ppb, p95 21.1 ppb, max 23.1 ppb. Parker 2022 leguminous-vegetable baby foods: no detections; substituted summary value 1.5 ppb. | Loaded product-row values are below the EU 40 ppb maximum where comparable, but the HMTc row-standard aggregate still needs a second fit distribution-capable source. | eu-2023-915-cadmium; fda2024-toxic-elements-baby-food-compliance-2009-2024; parker2022-baby-food-arsenic-cadmium-lead-mercury-risk |
Evidence Governance
Public evidence label: Modeled or limited evidence.
This page is part of the Category 1 Evidence Fitness pilot. It summarizes source-backed occurrence evidence, partial distributions, and data gaps for this product row. Existing cited tables remain public page-level synthesis; value-level tracking is maintained in the staff Standards Workbench.
This page does not publish or justify HMT&C certification limits. Public Index pages show what the cited sources say, what is still uncertain, and where readers can verify the evidence trail.
Literature Evidence Summary
The table below summarizes what the peer-reviewed and government literature cited on this page reports for heavy-metal concentrations in non-root vegetable product. Values are pulled directly from cited sources without re-aggregation; pooling, percentile selection, and threshold math sit in the staff Standards Workbench rather than this public page.
Methodology rules for speciation, basis preservation, non-detect handling, and source pooling are stated in the Methodology section above and apply to every row below.
| Analyte | Subcategory | Reported concentration range | Detection rate | Applicable regulatory cap | Sources | Confidence | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cd | non-root vegetable (direct row-fit) | mean/median 0.7 to 1.5 ppb (2 sources); highest reported 23.1 ppb | 64% detected (14/22, Fda 2024, as-sold) | eu-2023-915-cadmium: 40 ppb (product as placed on market) | 2 cited | low (1-2 sources) | as-sold; as-consumed |
| Pb | non-root vegetable (direct row-fit) | mean/median 0 to 2.3 ppb (2 sources); highest reported 7.6 ppb | 45% detected (13/29, Fda 2024, as-sold) | fda2025-lead-processed-baby-foods: 10 ppb (as sold or ready-to-eat as applicable) | 2 cited | low (1-2 sources) | as-sold; as-consumed |
Lead Benchmark Context
HMI normalizes this row’s lead benchmarks to ppb so regulatory ceilings, exposure screens, and occurrence values can be compared on one concentration scale. The values below do not all mean the same thing: FDA and EU entries are regulatory context, Prop 65 is a serving-based exposure screen, and source tables on this page remain occurrence evidence.
| Reference point | Lead ppb view | Basis | How to use it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Current FDA | 10 ppb (FDA final guidance action level) | ready-to-eat processed baby food | Vegetables excluding single-ingredient root vegetables for babies and young children under 2 |
| EU 2023/915 | 20 ppb | baby food as placed on market | EU maximum level. |
| Prop 65 MADL screen | 4.5 ppb | 21 CFR 101.12 strained/junior ready-to-serve infant food RACC of 110 g | Derived from the 0.5 ug/day lead MADL using 500 ÷ grams/day; not a product-specific food limit. |
| HMTc standards use | ppb-normalized context | FDA is 10 ppb and EU is 20 ppb, while the Prop 65 serving-equivalent screen is about 4.5 ppb at 110 g/day. | Use FDA 10 ppb as a regulatory cap/context and occurrence evidence to determine whether lower HMTc targets are feasible. |
Non-root vegetable products should not inherit the 20 ppb root-vegetable FDA value unless the product is a covered single-ingredient root vegetable.
Full crosswalk: lead-benchmark-context.
Scaffold Status
- Page state: evidence-backed scaffold with first distribution entries; row-specific synthesis remains incomplete.
- Source coverage: measured-values and distribution tables populated from promoted sources; row-fit caveats remain in the tables.
- Next ingest target: non-root vegetable puree datasets for Cd and Pb that report individual-product percentile distributions.
- Ingredient targets are unresolved app-taxonomy placeholders, not source-backed typical-ingredient findings.
Distribution Context
Parker 2022 provides a small leguminous-vegetable baby-food distribution with N=9. It is relevant to non-root vegetable purees, but it does not cover all non-root vegetables, does not provide p10 or p90, and should not be generalized to leafy greens or squash without additional sources. parker2022-baby-food-arsenic-cadmium-lead-mercury-risk
| Evidence type | Analyte | Product or row fit | N | Statistic available | Values | Distribution use | Caveat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| FDA compliance sample-level distribution | Total arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, Total mercury | FDA Vegetables rows without carrot, sweet potato, beet, or parsnip terms | tAs 20; Cd 22; Pb 29; tHg 13 | lower-bound p50, p90, p95, max | tAs p90 1 ppb, max 11 ppb; Cd p50 0.7 ppb, p90 12.8 ppb, max 23.1 ppb; Pb p90 2 ppb, max 7.6 ppb; tHg p90 0, max 0.4 ppb | Supports source-scope lower-bound distribution after review | Machine-extracted; <LOD treated as 0; root/non-root split is name-based. fda2024-toxic-elements-baby-food-compliance-2009-2024 |
| Leguminous vegetable baby-food distribution | Total arsenic | Leguminous vegetable baby foods | 9 | min, mean, median, max, detection rate | min 1.5 ppb; mean 4.2 ppb; median 5 ppb; max 5 ppb; detected 7/9 | Supports median/max only | Total arsenic, not iAs; no p10/p90; includes study substitution conventions. parker2022-baby-food-arsenic-cadmium-lead-mercury-risk |
| Leguminous vegetable baby-food distribution | Cadmium | Leguminous vegetable baby foods | 9 | detection rate, substituted value | no detections; table value 1.5 ppb after ND substitution | Does not support p10/p90/p100 | ND substitution reflects the study’s exposure model, not a measured concentration. parker2022-baby-food-arsenic-cadmium-lead-mercury-risk |
| Leguminous vegetable baby-food distribution | Lead | Leguminous vegetable baby foods | 9 | min, mean, median, max, detection rate | min 1.5 ppb; mean 2.3 ppb; median 1.5 ppb; max 5 ppb; detected 2/9 | Supports median/max only | Small N; no p10/p90; includes study substitution conventions. parker2022-baby-food-arsenic-cadmium-lead-mercury-risk |
| Leguminous vegetable baby-food distribution | Total mercury | Leguminous vegetable baby foods | 9 | detection rate, substituted value | no detections; table value 1.5 ppb after ND substitution | Does not support p10/p90/p100 | ND substitution reflects the study’s exposure model, not a measured concentration. parker2022-baby-food-arsenic-cadmium-lead-mercury-risk |
| UK category average | Nickel | UK green vegetables used in infant diet modeling | 50 other-food composites; category n not reported | category average | 210 ppb | Does not support p10/p90/p100 | Ingredient group, not finished puree. fsa2016-infant-food-formula-metals-survey |
Measured Values And Concentration Evidence
Non-root vegetable puree values remain approximate because sources group vegetables differently from the HMTc row. Parker 2022 provides a leguminous-vegetable baby-food subset, while the UK survey provides green-vegetable and other-vegetable concentration rows.
| Analyte | Evidence scope | Reported value | Approximate ppb equivalent | Source | Row-fit caveat |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cadmium | FDA FY2009-FY2024 non-root vegetable baby-food samples | p50 0.7 ppb; p90 12.8 ppb; p95 21.1 ppb; max 23.1 ppb | p50 0.7 ppb; p90 12.8 ppb; p95 21.1 ppb; max 23.1 ppb | fda2024-toxic-elements-baby-food-compliance-2009-2024 | Lower-bound machine extraction; name-based non-root subset. |
| Lead and Total arsenic | FDA FY2009-FY2024 non-root vegetable baby-food samples | Pb p90 2 ppb, max 7.6 ppb; tAs p90 1 ppb, max 11 ppb | Pb p90 2 ppb, max 7.6 ppb; tAs p90 1 ppb, max 11 ppb | fda2024-toxic-elements-baby-food-compliance-2009-2024 | Lower-bound machine extraction; source reports As, not iAs. |
| Lead | Parker 2022 leguminous vegetable baby foods | mean 2.3 ppb; median 1.5 ppb; max 5 ppb | mean 2.3 ppb; median 1.5 ppb; max 5 ppb | parker2022-baby-food-arsenic-cadmium-lead-mercury-risk | Leguminous vegetable group, N=9; no p10/p90. |
| Cadmium | Parker 2022 leguminous vegetable baby foods | no detections; substitution value 1.5 ppb | no detections; substitution value 1.5 ppb | parker2022-baby-food-arsenic-cadmium-lead-mercury-risk | ND substitution, not measured detected Cd. |
| Total arsenic | Parker 2022 leguminous vegetable baby foods | mean 4.2 ppb; median 5 ppb; max 5 ppb | mean 4.2 ppb; median 5 ppb; max 5 ppb | parker2022-baby-food-arsenic-cadmium-lead-mercury-risk | Total arsenic, not iAs. |
| Inorganic arsenic | Popular fruit and vegetable purees cited in infant arsenic study | up to 20 ug/kg | up to 20 ppb | signes-pastor2018-infants-dietary-arsenic-solid-food | Secondary citation combines fruit and vegetable purees. |
| Cadmium | UK green vegetables used in infant diet modeling | 5 ug/kg | 5 ppb | fsa2016-infant-food-formula-metals-survey | Ingredient group, not finished puree. |
| Lead | UK green vegetables used in infant diet modeling | 2 ug/kg | 2 ppb | fsa2016-infant-food-formula-metals-survey | Ingredient group, not finished puree. |
| Nickel | UK green vegetables used in infant diet modeling | 210 ug/kg | 210 ppb | fsa2016-infant-food-formula-metals-survey | Ingredient group, not finished puree. |
| Cadmium | UK other vegetables used in infant diet modeling | 17 ug/kg | 17 ppb | fsa2016-infant-food-formula-metals-survey | Mixed vegetable category; may include root vegetables. |
| Lead | UK other vegetables used in infant diet modeling | 7 to 8 ug/kg | 7 to 8 ppb | fsa2016-infant-food-formula-metals-survey | Mixed vegetable category; may include root vegetables. |
French TDS Category Rows
Chekri 2019 reports French soups/purees and vegetable-based ready-to-eat infant meals. The source does not split non-root from root vegetables, so these rows are context until the sample list is mapped to the HMTc split. Chekri 2019
| French TDS row | N | Basis | Al mean / max | tAs mean / max | Cd mean / max | Cr-total mean / max | Ni mean / max | Sn mean / max |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soups/purees | 11 | as consumed | 653 / 2140 ppb | 4.82 / 9 ppb | 7.36 / 15 ppb | 39 / 57 ppb | 57.7 / 106 ppb | 42 / 42 ppb |
| Vegetable-based ready-to-eat meals | 27 | as consumed | 575 / 2480 ppb | 3.33 / 17 ppb | 9.26 / 18 ppb | 50.4 / 92 ppb | 71.5 / 137 ppb | 59.5 / 143 ppb |
Row Relationship
This row is the clean-benchmark counterpart to root-vegetable-purees for the cross-row architecture relationship covering Cd and Pb.
Why This Category Is High-Risk
A 2022 narrative review summarized Parker et al. 2022 as finding arsenic in 78% of leguminous vegetable baby-food samples and lead in 22% of leguminous vegetable samples. bair2022-heavy-metals-infant-toddler-foods
A 2018 infant biomarker study found that, among weaning infants, vegetable intake was associated with the sum of urinary arsenic species (Spearman rho = 0.86, p = 0.01), but the study grouped vegetables as a dietary category rather than isolating non-root vegetable purees. signes-pastor2018-infants-dietary-arsenic-solid-food
A 2025 global scoping review classified fruits and vegetables together for one baby-food grouping, so it supports broad monitoring context for vegetable purees but does not separate non-root vegetables from root vegetables. collado-lopez2025-heavy-metals-baby-food-formula
Non-root vegetable puree risk remains only partially supported because the promoted sources do not yet distinguish leafy greens, squash, legumes, finished purees, or row-specific non-root vegetables.
What Drives Variance Across Brands
Potential variance drivers for non-root vegetable purees should be documented only after sources distinguish vegetable type, growing region, soil contribution, processing, and analytical method.
How The App Would Estimate Risk From An Ingredient List
The app model placeholder for this row should treat non-root-vegetable-purees, leafy-greens, and squash as unresolved ingredient targets until source-backed contamination profiles exist.
Historical Recalls/Enforcement
FDA’s 2023 proposed lead action levels, as summarized by Price et al. 2023, included 10 ppb for fruits and vegetables. price2023-baby-food-lead-biokinetic-models
No row-specific regulatory event has been added for this scaffold.
Broad Product Context: Author-Scope Index
The sources below are catalogued as product-context candidates for this row. The “Author-scope row-fit” column states what the authors actually resolved on each axis: matrix (cow milk-based, soy-based, rice-based, non-rice, or unresolved) and format (powder, ready-to-feed liquid, concentrated liquid, dry, or unresolved). A source counts toward this row’s evidence pool only once; rows marked “Cross-reference” already appear as direct evidence elsewhere on this page and are not counted again here.
| Source | Title | Source scope | Metals | Author-scope row-fit | Canonical appearance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| chekri2019-french-infant-toddler-tds-trace-elements | Trace element contents in foods from the first French Total D… | infant-formula; baby-cereals; fruit-purees; fruit-juice-not-canned | Al; Sb; tAs; Cd; Cr; Co; Ni; Sn; V | Matrix axis: unresolved (declares infant formula broadly). Format axis: unresolved (powder vs RTF not split). Source is broader than this row; authors do not narrow to this exact matrix/format pair. | Cross-reference - section: French TDS Category Rows |
| fsa2016-infant-food-formula-metals-survey | Survey of metals in commercial infant foods, infant formula a… | infant-formula-powder; infant-formula-rtf-liquid; baby-cereals; fruit-purees | Al; Sb; tAs; iAs; Cd; Cr; Cu; I; Fe; Pb; Mn; tHg; Ni; Se; Sn; Zn | Matrix axis: unresolved (declares powder generally; soy/non-soy not split). Format axis: partial (covers multiple formats without splitting). Source is broader than this row; authors do not narrow to this exact matrix/format pair. | Cross-reference - section: Distribution Context |
| signes-pastor2018-infants-dietary-arsenic-solid-food | Infants’ dietary arsenic exposure during transition to solid … | infant-formula-powder; rice-cereal; fruit-purees; vegetable-purees | iAs; tAs | Matrix axis: unresolved (declares powder generally; soy/non-soy not split). Format axis: exact (powder). Source is broader than this row; authors do not narrow to this exact matrix/format pair. | Cross-reference - section: Measured Values And Concentration Evidence |
Sources
Auto-generated from source-page frontmatter. The “Used on this page for” column is populated by the orchestrator’s POPULATE-SOURCE-LEGEND action; pending entries appear as *[awaiting synthesis]*.
| # | Citation | Year | Type | Used on this page for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Collado-Lopez et al. 2025. Concentrations of Heavy Metals in Processed Baby Foods and Infant Formulas Worldwide: A Scoping Review, Nutrition Reviews | 2025 | Peer-reviewed | Global scoping review reporting broad vegetable baby-food detection rates for Pb, Cd, As, and Hg; does not split root from non-root vegetables, so used as broad vegetable-category monitoring context |
| 2 | FDA 2025. Action Levels for Lead in Processed Food Intended for Babies and Young Children: Guidance for Industry, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Food and Drug Administration, Human Foods Program | 2025 | Government guidance | FDA Closer to Zero final guidance establishing the 10 ppb Pb action level for non-root-vegetable baby foods (fruit and vegetable category excluding single-ingredient root vegetables), the regulatory benchmark loaded in the crosswalk section |
| 3 | FDA 2024. Analytical Results for Lead in Processed Food Intended for Babies and Young Children (FY2023), FDA analytical results table | 2024 | Government dataset | 386-sample FY2023 FDA Pb survey including non-root vegetable puree rows, the most recent analytical dataset directly supporting the 2025 final guidance 10 ppb action level |
| 4 | FDA 2024. Analytical Results for Arsenic, Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury in Food Intended for Babies and Young Children - TEP (FY2009-FY2024), FDA analytical results table | 2024 | Government dataset | FY2009-FY2024 FDA compliance program providing tAs, Pb, Cd, and tHg distributions for the name-based non-root vegetable subset (excluding carrot, sweet potato, beet, parsnip), the primary occurrence dataset on this page |
| 5 | Bair 2022. A Narrative Review of Toxic Heavy Metal Content of Infant and Toddler Foods and Evaluation of United States Policy, Frontiers in Nutrition 9:919913 | 2022 | Peer-reviewed | US narrative review summarizing Parker 2022 detection rates for leguminous vegetable baby foods (As 78%, Pb 22%) and evaluating FDA policy, providing policy and detection-rate context for this category |
| 6 | Parker et al. 2022. Human health risk assessment of arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury ingestion from baby foods, Toxicology Reports | 2022 | Peer-reviewed | US baby-food occurrence study measuring tAs, Cd, Pb, and tHg in a leguminous-vegetable group (N=9) with min/mean/median/max statistics; Pb max 5 ppb and no detectable Cd in this group |
| 7 | FDA 2021. Analytical Results for Lead in Food Intended for Babies and Young Children (FY2020-FY2021), FDA analytical results table | 2021 | Government dataset | 416-sample FY2020-FY2021 FDA Pb survey including non-root vegetable purees, contributing to the multi-year evidence base behind the 2025 final guidance |
| 8 | Paiva et al. 2020. Aluminium in infant foods: Total content, effect of in vitro digestion on bioaccessible fraction and preliminary exposure assessment, Journal of Food Composition and Analysis 90:103493 | 2020 | Peer-reviewed | Brazilian market Al occurrence and bioaccessibility survey covering salty purees with zucchini, lettuce, lentil, and non-root vegetable combinations, providing Al total-content and bioaccessibility data for non-root infant food matrices |
| 9 | Chekri et al. 2019. Trace element contents in foods from the first French Total Diet Study on infants and toddlers, Journal of Food Composition and Analysis | 2019 | Peer-reviewed | French TDS reporting multi-element concentrations in infant soups/purees and vegetable-based ready-to-eat meals; root/non-root split not resolved, so used as broad vegetable-puree context |
| 10 | Signes-Pastor et al. 2018. Infants’ dietary arsenic exposure during transition to solid food, Scientific Reports | 2018 | Peer-reviewed | Infant biomarker study linking vegetable intake to urinary arsenic during weaning, with secondary citation for fruit and vegetable puree iAs up to 20 ppb; vegetable category not split by root vs non-root |
| 11 | FSA 2016. Survey of metals in commercial infant foods, infant formula and non-infant specific foods, UK Food Standards Agency report FS102048 | 2016 | Government report | UK survey providing category-average Cd (5 ppb), Pb (2 ppb), and Ni (210 ppb) for UK green vegetables used in infant-diet modeling, as European non-root vegetable ingredient context |
| 12 | Kirkpatrick et al. 1980. The Trace Element Content of Canadian Baby Foods and Estimation of Trace Element Intake by Infants, Canadian Institute of Food Science and Technology Journal 13(4):154-161 | 1980 | Peer-reviewed | 1980 Canadian national baseline measuring nine metals in strained and junior vegetables by AAS (LOD 10 ppb); used as historical ceiling for the 50-year contamination reduction trajectory, not as a modern distribution source |