A couple of weeks ago, I posted about a couple of my moms being warned not to
feed yellow and orange vegetables to their infants.  I contacted a RD friend
at the university nearby and she came up with the following article.

A CAUTION ABOUT VEGETABLES HIGH IN NITRATES OR NITRITES
The AAP (CON, 1993) indicates that "home-prepared spinach, beets, turnips,
carrots, or collard greens are not good choices for feeding during early
infancy because they may contain sufficient nitrate to cause
methemoglobinemia."

Methemoglobinemia, also termed blue baby syndrome, is characterized by blue
skin and difficulty in breathing, and could lead to death.  The nitrate in
high-nitrate vegetables is converted to nitrite before ingestion or in the
infant's stomach.  The nitrite binds to iron in the blood and hinders the
blood's ability to carry oxygen.

The potential risk of developing methemoglobinemia is only present with home-
prepared high-nitrate vegetables; commercially prepared strained and junior
spinach, carrots, and beets contain only traces of nitrate (Wilson, 1949;Kamm
et al., 1965) and are not considered a risk to the infant (Fomon, 1974: CON,
1970).  Thus, advise caregivers not to feed infants less than 6 months old
those home-prepared vegetables potentially high in nitrates noted above.

 One mother told me that she had hear a RD speak to a baby care class as to
not give carrots, sweet potatoes, squash and greens.  Another mother showed
some literature from CARNAT*** about starting solids and warned again home-
prepared food and yellow and orange vegetables.  I guess this is where they
are getting this, but if you wait to introduce solids at 6 month or beyond,
there is no real danger.  The RD that I spoke with said babies would have to
ingest an awful lot of the foods mentioned in the article and that it would
not be likely that a baby over six months would be feed too much of these
foods.

Warmly,
Pat Lindsey, IBCLC
Pediatrics Plus
Orlando, FL