Parents are unwittingly feeding their babies and young children on items that may be worse for their health than junk food, researchers say.

Sustain, which campaigns for healthier children’s food, found that a cheeseburger and chocolate biscuits were more nutritious than some food specifically marketed for babies.

An audit of more than 100 products aimed at the infant and children’s market has even raised questions over Farley’s Original Rusk, a popular food that has been used to wean babies for 120 years. The biscuit, made by Heinz, contains more sugar than McVitie’s dark chocolate digestives, according to Sustain.

Another alleged offender, also made by Heinz, is Toddler’s Own mini cheese biscuits, said to have more saturated fat per 100 grams than a McDonald’s quarter pounder with cheese.

Only half of all products in the survey were low in saturated fat, salt and sugar, with the tally for Heinz products just one in four. In the case of Cow&Gate, one in nine products was high in sugars.

What may be particularly disturbing to parents is that one product, Cow&Gate Baby Balance biscuits, contained trans fats that are linked to coronary heart disease. Yet there was no mention of this on the label, which is a legal requirement.

The company has decided to discontinue this range of biscuits but only after being confronted by the Food Standards Agency (FSA).

When Sustain campaigners first approached the company with the findings, they were told there were no trans fats in the product. It was two days later before the company came clean and admitted presence of trans fats. Even then Cow&Gate insisted that small amounts of trans fats did not cause a health risk. It conceded that if there were concrete evidence that trans fats were dangerous, they would be dropped from the biscuits.

The health lobby is alarmed because almost a decade ago a similar study exposed high levels of sugar, saturated fat and salt in food for babies and children, yet it would appear that little action has been taken.

Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, is being urged to obtain a commitment from all children’s food manufacturers to devise new recipes for their products, remove trans fats and reduce sugar, saturated fat and salt. Sustain is also calling for the Government to develop specific labels for children’s foods so that parents can see at a glance whether a product is healthy.

Christine Haigh, joint co-ordinator of the Children’s Food Campaign run by Sustain, said that the results were staggering. “Many foods marketed for babies and young children are often advertised as ‘healthy’. In reality, in terms of sugar and saturated fat content, some are worse than junk food. In particular, failing correctly to label products that contain dangerous trans fats is outrageous,” she said.

Heinz hit out at the findings and said that it was misleading to compare its range of Toddler’s Own mini cheese biscuits with a McDonald’s quarter pounder. A spokesman said that the biscuits came in a 25g portion size and contained only 1.8g saturated fat per serving, because of the inclusion of cheese in the product. The McDonald's burger, however, was a 194g portion size and contained 13g saturated fat per serving.

He also defended Farley’s Original Rusks and said that Heinz had introduced alternatives with 30 per cent reduced sugar content than the original recipe, Farley’s reduced sugar rusks and reduced sugar banana.

Cow&Gate confirmed that it had already discontinued the range of baby biscuits found with trans fats and defended its range of other products.

In a statement the company said: “Three of these are biscuits, which require sugar in the recipe and contain 18 per cent total sugar, which is less than most comparable adult varieties and other baby biscuits. The other product is a 100 per cent fruit purée that contains no added sugar and only the sugar naturally present in the fruit.”

The FSA said: “Babies and young children have different nutritional needs to adults and do not generally need low-fat diets, as fats give them energy and provides some fat soluble vitamins. Babies and young children need foods that provide a high density of calories and nutrients in a small amount of foods as they only have small stomachs.”

Its advice to parents was to check labels on children’s processed foods and choose items with low salt and sugar.

Sustain conducted the survey in March. The charity, an alliance for improved food and farming, is also funded by the British Heart Foundation.

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