Difficulty: Moderately Easy
Step1
Familiarize yourself with the foods that tend to have higher levels of naturally occurring nitrates. Root vegetables, such as carrots and beets tend to have elevated levels, and leafy green vegetables such as spinach, broccoli, cabbage and kale typically contain the most nitrates.
Step2
Wait to introduce solid food to your baby. The risk of nitrate poisoning is highest in young infants under the age of three months. By six months of age, the risk of developing nitrate poisoning is much lower because the baby's gut has matured. Medical experts recommend waiting until six months to introduce solid food for many reasons, nitrates being one of them.
Step3
Skip foods known to be high in nitrates if you make your own baby food. It may be safer to stick with commercially prepared carrots and spinach because most baby food companies screen for nitrates in the fresh food they use. It is not possible to do this sort of screening with food prepared at home. Commercially prepared baby food does not have the nitrates removed, but they come from vegetables grown with little to no nitrate containing fertilizer.
Step4
Use fresh water when making your own baby food purees. If you use the water in which you cooked the vegetables to thin your purees, you introduce nitrates that have leached out into the cooking water back into your baby's food.
