So far it’s been pretty difficult for Baby Nicholas to join our Royal Warrant testing panel. The kid doesn’t consume a lot besides breast milk, formula, diapers, and baby lotion, so we can’t be sure how he feels about tea, metal cleaner, or mustard. A couple of weeks ago, without even thinking about it, we bought a Royal Warrant product especially for him: Gerber baby rice cereal. In the U.S., Gerber has recently partnered with global food company Nestlé, which holds a Royal Warrant from Her Majesty the Queen as “Manufacturers of Nestle Products.”
Baby rice cereal is the simplest food you’re ever going to make. Actually, that’s not correct. Baby rice cereal should be the simplest food you’re ever going to make. To prepare a single serving for one baby, you stir the powdered, shimmery rice flakes into breast milk or formula until they dissolve into a too-thin, watery mixture. You then start feeding it to your baby, but the whole time you’re thinking this is just a little bit too thin. So then you add another tiny shake of the rice flakes. Only, your arm always slips, and you always add about three tablespoons too much. I’m not sure how this happens, but I promise you that this always happens. And then the mixture has turned to concrete. Your baby is glaring at you: What did you do?! And pretty soon you’re mixing up more formula or heating up more breast milk to water it down further, but while you’re doing that your baby starts freaking out: Forget it! I don’t even want it now! I finally learned my lesson with Nathan, but that means that Nicholas always eats too-thin rice cereal.
I thought I’d put my rice cereal problems behind me. I’m an old pro at this now! Nicholas had been eating it pretty well for a few days when I caught a story on Today a couple of weeks ago. Essentially the news report claimed that American rice is loaded down with very high levels of arsenic, a known carcinogen. This is especially bad for infants, whose solid food diet is sometimes limited to rice cereal alone. I thought immediately of Nicholas because at that time, rice cereal was the only solid food he was eating.
We’ve now replaced our Gerber rice cereal with Gerber oatmeal. Yes, I can appreciate the irony here. It’s not unlike the English professor Adam and I had in college who announced he’d decided to boycott Coca-Cola for unnamed reasons. He entered class the next day drinking a Dasani water, so we helpfully pointed out to him that Coca-Cola owns Dasani. The next day he came into class drinking MinuteMaid lemonade. “You know that’s owned by Coca-Cola too, right?” one of our classmates asked him. He admitted he did not know. “Are you buying all of these out of the Coke machine around the corner?” Adam asked. He nodded. The next day he came to class drinking a Coke again.
But I digress. Gerber put out a statement saying that its rice cereal has been made with California rice since the beginning of 2012 because California rice has far lower levels of naturally occurring arsenic. Based upon my research, this is accurate. The highest levels of arsenic come in brown rice grown in Arkansas, where arsenic was long used as a pesticide on cotton crops. It leached into the soil and has stayed put ever since.
God only knows what’s lurking in our oatmeal, but Nicholas’s diet on paper at least looks pretty healthy: breast milk, formula, oatmeal, homemade peas, apples, and sweet potatoes. I find again with my second child that it’s scary to transition from breastmilk—the safest, most perfect food for a baby—to food that comes from the somewhat irksome and poorly-regulated American food supply.
I wonder if Queen Elizabeth also feared the transition away from breastfeeding. Biographer Robert Lacey shares in Monarch that Elizabeth breastfed Prince Charles, her first baby. I worry this little factoid is only interesting to me because I’m currently breastfeeding. If that’s true, I’m sorry. If it’s not true, let’s continue on.
Have you ever breastfed a newborn baby? Yikesy. That’s a lot of new to get used to. I live in a world of Boppy and My-Brest-Friend pillows, of supportive husbands, and nursing covers with a thin, curved wire that allow ultimate privacy but also eye contact with a breastfeeding infant. There are state and federal laws that guarantee me the right to breastfeed my baby in public, even if I’m not wearing one of those expensive nursing covers. In many ways, it’s a fantastic time to be a breastfeeding mother, but any mom will tell you it’s still not without its difficulties. There are people who go out of their way to glare at you and make you feel uncomfortable...there are the long days of maternity leave that seem to string together as one big, long nursing session...there’s the two 20-minute breaks I take at work each day to cozy up to a breast pump. It’s not very appealing stuff. Someone with royal blood should be able to get out of some of the unpleasantries of being a nursing mother...but money and bloodline really don’t buy everything. In this case, they don’t buy your breastmilk going into your baby’s mouth without you being pretty actively involved.
I like that Queen Elizabeth nursed her baby. It makes me feel close to her in a way that transcends money, social class, age, and nationality. Just like me, she has had to answer to a hungry, unreasonable child waking up for a midnight snack. That makes her seem more like a real person and less like a distant monarch.
While we’re talking about “real,” Nestlé promises to provide Nicholas and the rest of our family real nutrition for the rest of our lives. Manufacturing everything from bottled water to KitKat bars, the company has something for everyone. In all of the research I’ve done on Royal Warrant products, Nestlé's website seems to make some of the boldest claims. Consider what it says about the British food brand Herta: “Frankfurters are the ultimate family meal: tasty, inexpensive and quick.” Huh. The Nestlé logo on the back of our baby cereal comes with the advice to “start your child on a course to healthy nutrition,” as if to suggest I'm doing just that by buying Nestlé-branded baby food products. And what does Nestlé claim about the chocolate bars for which it’s so well-known? They’re good for you: “Long known for great taste and enjoyment, Nestlé chocolate and confectionary products are also full of intrinsic goodness, contributing to well-being.”
Whatever. To revisit the Britvic debate, does this manufacturer of food and nutrition products deserve a Royal Warrant? In recent years, Nestlé has arguably pushed global social justice issues into the forefront of its company mission. It also sponsors programs such as the Nestlé Social Research Programme, which is committed to improving the lives of people under 35.
Perhaps this is a company you can feel good about...even if you are at times feeding your child a food you can’t be sure about.
Where to buy: For British candy, try Amazon or World Market.
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