Baby Food

Even baby-food manufacturers now bankroll Washington. LastJanuary, Gerber Products Company learned that baby food was in desperately short supply in the former Soviet Union. The company proposed to the Agriculture Department that its products be included in the U.S. aid package. But its bid went nowhere.The stakes were high: Someday the republics would buy their own baby food; and they would probably choose the brand they had come to know through U.S. aid.So the company hired a lobbying firm to press its case, and a Gerber executive traveled to Washington weekly.

Students at Pointers Run Elementary are learning about the devastation of Hurricane Andrew by sending non-perishable food and other items to storm victims.Since the start of school, students have dropped off about $200 worth of canned goods, baby formula, diapers, flashlights, insect repellent and other items, school officials said."We thought maybe they would send a couple of bags, but they brought in several boxes," said Teresa Logan, president of the Pointers Run PTA, which organized the food drive.

Hey, baby, what's for dinner?Might be organically grown rice and lentils, with a carrot-parsnip mix on the side and guava juice. Maybe even a papaya-pineapple dessert.In the $1 billion-a-year baby food industry, organic and Hispanic foods are among the latest items competing for pint-size palates.These consumers may not have much to say about the variety of foods available. But they do eat a lot of them -- an average of 500 jars during the eight to 12 months that a child usually is given prepared baby foods.

Ellen and John Staab were blessed four times in December -- Blake Patrick, Brent Gerard, Shea Elizabeth, and Shannon Noelle. Since then, the Bel Air family has been blessed at least four-fold again by the generosity of friends and strangers."

Two men who paid for $40 worth of groceries at a Giant store in Annapolis displayed a gun to a cashier who tried to charge them for a case of baby formula Tuesday.According to the police report, the pair came through a check-out lane of the store, which is in the 2300 block of Forest Drive. They put several items on the counter that totaled about $40. As they were leaving, the clerk noticed a case of baby formula that cost about $56 on the bottom rack of their grocery cart.When he told the men that he had to charge them, one of them replied, "You don't have to do that," and lifted his jacket up, revealinga gun.The clerk did not argue with the pair, and they left the store,police said.

Look for more processed foods to show up with "organic" on the label, predict industry insiders.Processing takes organics beyond the fresh-produce aisle and serves up the ready-made convenience Americans crave. And it solves a problem: Fresh organic produce that's often not picture-perfect, partly because it's not treated for long shelf life.Washington's Cascadian Farm is an industry leader, producing many processed products from organically grown fruits and vegetables that are sold nationally.

London. -- Fifteen years ago the Paris-based international Herald Tribune published an editorial article that asked in its first line, ''Does Nestle make chocolates and kill babies?'' It caused a minor European storm and, after a follow-up article, its author was threatened with arrest if he should ever set foot again on Nestle's home turf, Switzerland.Nestle is the world's biggest manufacturer of baby food, and the controversy has swirled around its elegant headquarters on the vine-covered shores of Lake Geneva ever since.

A 17-year-old youth accused of losing his temper and beating a 13-month-old baby to death after the child threw a jar of baby food at him was charged yesterday with first-degree murder, Anne Arundel County police said.Michael Lewis Crockett of the 700 block of 215th Street in Pasadena was charged as an adult in the death of Christopher Lewis Krauss, who died Wednesday at North Arundel Hospital.The Crockett youth, who lives with Christopher's 16-year-old mother and her parents, was baby-sitting the child at the time of the child's death.

Charlyne Varkonyi, food and home writer for The Sun, has received the top food/nutrition award in the national JCPenney-Missouri awards competition for lifestyle and feature writing.Her story, which appeared May 16, 1990, in A La Carte, showed how baby-food manufacturers were exaggerating the results of a medical study so they could gain an exemption from proposed federal legislation requiring full nutritional labeling. The manufacturers argued that they should be allowed to keep the amount of fat, cholesterol and fiber off the label because well-meaning parents would be misled and would underfeed their children.