What’s the best jarred baby food in 2025?
The jarred baby food market isn’t exactly cutting edge–pouches seem to be winning out in that respect. And the hottest new baby food options are delivered cold to your door (we will be writing more about these soon).
When it comes to jarred baby food in 2022, I didn’t find any Best Stuff, but there’s plenty of Good Stuff. You’ll also want to check out the Okay Stuff and Sneaky Stuff–there are some surprises in there! This post will also offer some information about what you should and should not freak out about when it comes to heavy metal contamination in baby foods.
The reason that no jarred food qualifies as Best Stuff is that none of the brands have certifications, third-party testing, or set limits on heavy metal contamination, as is the case for certain pouched baby food brands.
What’s bad about jarred baby food?
There are several reasons why jarred baby foods aren’t the leading edge of the market. Some trouble spots to watch out for:
- Jarred baby foods are typically cooked longer and at higher temperatures than foods packaged in pouches. This theoretically means that the contents may be less nutritious. This also can affect the flavor of the food.
- Jars are less convenient than pouches–they’re breakable and heavy and can’t be handed off to a tot for self-feeding.
- Because jars are heavier than pouches, transporting them is more costly to the environment.
- It’s hard to know what’s in the lining of the jar lids. Look for brands that at least say they’re BPA-free, and avoid feeding your baby any food that’s stuck to the lid.
- Like all baby foods, jarred purees can be high in sugar and may have ingredients likely to be contaminated by heavy metals. See more on both of these issues, below.
Bottom line: Homemade baby food is cheaper, better for the environment, healthier, and tastier–but not always a reasonable option. If you want to find the best jarred baby food, I hope this guide will help.
What’s good about jarred baby food?
Baby food jars do offer a few unique advantages:
- Jars are plastic free (or mostly plastic free–there can be plastic components in the lining of the jar lids), so you can worry less about chemicals leaching into the food.
- Jars are more likely to be recyclable than pouches. Although some companies that produce pouches say that they’re committed to making them recyclable within the next few years.
- I like (but sometimes used to hate!) that jars make you feed your child with a spoon, rather than letting them suck down purees from a pouch. Critics of pouches say that when children feed themselves purees, they’re more likely to eat fast and miss their fullness cues, consuming more calories and sugar than they need. (See more on the sugar issue, below.)
What are the ingredients in jarred baby food?
The best jarred baby food uses simple recipes that include:
- Fruits and vegetables, and sometimes meat, in the earliest stages (four months and six months). Other categories like grains and dairy are added to blends for more advanced stages (six months and up.)
- Water for cooking and consistency.
- Small amounts of spices (sometimes) and antioxidants/preservatives to make the product shelf stable and keep the natural colors from turning. Some purees don’t have any of these minor ingredients.
I was pleasantly surprised to find that these days, pretty much all organic jarred baby foods are free of sketchy ingredients. They don’t tend to include things like “flavors,” starches/fillers, added sugar, or added salt. The common antioxidant and preservative ingredients are citric acid, ascorbic acid (vitamin C), and lemon juice, which are safe and generally not problematic. (Lemon juice can be an issue for babies with citrus allergies or sensitivities).
What about heavy metals in jarred baby food?
Most of you have probably seen alarming reports—most recently in 2021—blowing the whistle on companies that knowingly allowed unsafe levels of heavy metals in their baby food products.
This is definitely concerning, and we published a whole post that gets into the nitty gritty. For the purposes of this guide, I want you to know that not all baby foods are problematic, especially when it comes to the jarred food category.
Here are some key takeaways to help you choose baby food with the lowest risk of heavy metal contamination:
- Some of the biggest offenders are rice products–-rice cereals, rice-based rusks/teethers, puffs, rice cakes, etc.
- Carrots and sweet potatoes tend to be higher in arsenic, lead, and cadmium, regardless of whether they’re organic or conventional.
- The primary ingredients themselves are what is contaminated, so making your own baby food doesn’t necessarily ensure a safer product.
- You can minimize exposure to heavy metals by avoiding the foods most likely to be contaminated. Healthy Babies Bright Futures has some handy resources, and we provide you with 9 tips in this post (including how to cook rice to vastly reduce the amount of arsenic it contains!).
- While none of the jarred food brands provide any proof of lower heavy metal contamination, some pouches of baby food do. The EU sets limits on heavy metal levels, which is why we carry Holle pouches in our store. Serenity Kids pouches are verified by the Clean Label Project, meaning they are tested for contaminants that include heavy metals. (Use code GIMME15 for 15% off at Serenity.)
Can “bad” brands make healthy jarred baby food?
You’ll notice that I include some of the brands called out in the whistleblower reports as Good Stuff or Okay Stuff. I’m certainly not endorsing them as awesome companies or pretending that they have scandal-free reputations. I’m including them because they offer jarred baby foods that skip the most concerning ingredients.
With all the brands, I think it’s smart to avoid the straight carrot and sweet potato purees. You should also minimize or skip the rice cereals, puffs, and teethers!
What about sugar in jarred baby food?
Almost all of the organic jarred baby foods I reviewed have no added sugar. However, some of these purees, even from Good Stuff brands, have shockingly high amounts of sugar. The higher sugar content comes from naturally occurring sugars in cooked-down versions of sweeter fruits, with the biggest offender being bananas.
Here’s how to avoid encouraging a sweet tooth by watching out for the higher sugar content in some purees:
- Remember that “no sugar added” doesn’t mean that a product is low in sugar.
- Look for “total sugars” on the nutrition label and compare a couple of products. For example, Earth’s Best Organic Bananas has 18 grams of total sugars per 4-ounce jar, whereas a jar of Earth’s Best Organic Peas has only 4 grams.
Read on for the three brands that we think make the best jarred baby food, plus the brands we think are just okay or downright sneaky.
Now that you know which baby jarred foods are Good, Bad, and Sneaky, I’d love to know: does anyone feed their baby shelf-stable food from glass jars? Or is it strictly pouches and delivered fresh food (like Little Spoon) or powders like Amara? Please let me know below!
Stay sane,
Note: This article contains affiliate links or sponsored content, which means that if you make a purchase, we may earn a commission. We only recommend products that meet our strict standards for non-toxicity and that we use (or want to use!) ourselves. Thank you so much for supporting the brands that make Good Stuff!
Tags:Baby,
Breastfeeding + Formula + First Food,
Grocery Guides,
Pregnancy & Parenting
