First and foremost, jarred commercial baby food carrots (and other jarred commercial baby food vegetables) have nitrates too! Even jarred organic carrot baby foods have nitrates. Commercial baby food companies will tell you that they SCREEN for nitrate levels, not that they remove nitrates. This means that they may buy veggies that are grown in a part of the country where the nitrate contamination of soil is lower, where the sun shines more or where Farmer's do not use high levels of nitrogen containing fertilizers. Nitrates are naturally occurring and thus cannot be removed!

Due to screening, commercial baby foods may contain a lower level of nitrates than homemade as parents do not have the ability to screen veggies for nitrates. Please keep in mind that baby food companies voluntarily screen for levels of nitrate and there is no Federal (U.S.) regulation or mandate requiring them to screen. You see, nitrates are naturally occuring in the vegetable itself and not even the folks at Gerber/Beechnut/Heinz et al. can remove nitrates.

So when we first hear of nitrates and carrots,