What can parents do, to reduce the intake of fluoride at home besides purchasing a reverse osmosis or other fluoride removal water filter?
Carol Kopf: I am not a physician but this is my opinion: AVOID fluoridated water and toothpaste or any other obvious fluoride sources. Breastfeed infants and/or use ready-to-feed infant formula. Use fluoride free bottled water if necessary. Fluoride varnishes contain a hugely toxic 26,000 parts per million fluoride. Some parents may want to avoid them even though dentists are applying varnishes as soon as baby teeth erupt. Even though most of the varnish sticks to the teeth, some fluoride gets absorbed into the system anyway. Check food labels for mechanically deboned meat. Meat separated by machines from the bone invariably gets fluoride-containing bone dust into the finished product. Mechanically deboned chicken, such as some chicken baby foods and formed meats such as vienna fingers and McNuggets have unexpectedly high fluoride contents. Parents should become familiar with the USDA Fluoride Database (see our chart below) to learn how much fluoride is in the foods they give their chi
