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AmityvilleHams · 10-04-2020, 06:28 AM

Lemon juice is often misrepresented as this extremely problematic ingredient but it really isn't when present in reasonably small amounts as a preservative. Just because it can be irritating in larger amounts doesn't mean it's necessarily a completely unsuitable ingredient, and unfortunately I've even seen it be so dramatically misrepresented as being considered toxic which is complete nonsense!

Personally I would be cautious with foods that don't label specific percentages of lemon juice though, as it is possible some may overdo it. With preservative levels you'd see something like 2% or less - an extremely small amount especially when you consider how little baby food you'd actually be giving. For example, if 2% of a 100 gram jar of baby food was lemon juice there would only be a mere 2 grams of lemon juice - and no hamster would be getting the entire jar fast enough to be remotely concerning. There could certainly also be baby foods using lemon juice as a preservative which have even less lemon juice.

I do know in the US we have Beech Nut baby food, some of which are hamster friendly. I've found they do have decent enough variety of fruit baby foods without lemon juice, but again personally I wouldn't be too concerned with lemon juice compared to things like garlic and onion which absolutely should not be included in any amount.

10-04-2020, 06:28 AM
AmityvilleHams PM Fluffy for custom title Join Date: Mar 2016 Posts: 4,545	Re: Instant baby porridge Lemon juice is often misrepresented as this extremely problematic ingredient but it really isn't when present in reasonably small amounts as a preservative. Just because it can be irritating in larger amounts doesn't mean it's necessarily a completely unsuitable ingredient, and unfortunately I've even seen it be so dramatically misrepresented as being considered toxic which is complete nonsense! Personally I would be cautious with foods that don't label specific percentages of lemon juice though, as it is possible some may overdo it. With preservative levels you'd see something like 2% or less - an extremely small amount especially when you consider how little baby food you'd actually be giving. For example, if 2% of a 100 gram jar of baby food was lemon juice there would only be a mere 2 grams of lemon juice - and no hamster would be getting the entire jar fast enough to be remotely concerning. There could certainly also be baby foods using lemon juice as a preservative which have even less lemon juice. I do know in the US we have Beech Nut baby food, some of which are hamster friendly. I've found they do have decent enough variety of fruit baby foods without lemon juice, but again personally I wouldn't be too concerned with lemon juice compared to things like garlic and onion which absolutely should not be included in any amount.