The vast majority of American parents buy the Gerber product with only 50% bananas. Of its 149 products for babies up to a year old, Gerber adds sugar to 52, modified food starch to 42, and other thickeners to 24. For some foods for slightly older children, it also adds salt.

Gerber's major competitors are Beech-Nut and H. J. Heinz, each with about 14% of the market. Beech-Nut adds sugar only to its desserts. Heinz adds sugar and starch but not salt to its baby foods.

Earth's Best, a producer of organic baby food, and Growing Healthy, which makes frozen baby food, have about 3% of the market. They add none of these ingredients. Their jars of bananas only contain bananas and enough water for processing.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group, claims that Gerber's addition of sugar, modified food starch, and salt makes its baby foods less nutritious than those produced by other baby-food makers. Using nutritional data provided by Gerber and Beech-Nut, the center compared a 3.5-ounce serving of Beech-Nut Banana with Gerber's Bananas With Tapioca (which is what Gerber calls modified food starch). Beech-Nut delivers 68% more potassium, more than double the dietary fiber, more than 3 times the vitamin A, 80% more protein, and nearly 3 times as much iron.

Gerber, however, advertises: "Nutritionally, you can't buy a better baby food than Gerber." The firm also claims that modified food starch and sugar "provide added value without sacrificing nutrition."

In its advertising, Gerber compares its Bananas With Tapioca to Beech-Nut's Bananas With Pear and Apple, which has less of the same nutrients than does its pure Bananas. Beech-Nut, in its ads, does compare the same two products, but it says only that its products are 100% fruit while Gerber's are "less than 50 percent fruit." (In the interest of full disclosure: As I write this example, I'm serving my sick child root beer for breakfast at her request.)

SOURCE:

Burros, Marian, "Eating Well," New York Times, February 21, 1996:B7.