A 52-d study with 24 3-d-old calves compared the effect of feeding whole milk (controls) or milk diluted 1:1 or 1:3 with reconstituted skim milk powder (10%, wt/wt) on calf performance to weaning at 38 d. Skim powder diets were supplemented with vitamins and trace minerals. Liquid diet was fed at 5% body weight twice daily for 24 d, then once daily for 14 d followed by abrupt weaning. Starter was provided for ad libitum intake from 14 to 52 d. For the first 13 d, controls had the greatest weight gains, but at 38 and 52 d, gains were similar for all groups. Three-quarters of the whole milk diet could be replaced with reconstituted skim milk powder (10% wt/wt) without any reduction in calf gain to weaning because starter intake increased 23%.

This paper presents results of nitrites and nitrates determination in two types of baby foods: commercial products in jars and their homemade conventional counterparts. Nitrites levels in all analyzed samples were below of the detection limit (< 0.9 mg/kg) of applied spectrophotometric method with Griess reagent. Nitrates contents in commercial products ranged: 9.1-38.1 mg/kg while in homemade baby foods levels between 26.6 mg/kg and 118.8 mg/kg were obtained. All the contents of nitrates were lower than the EU legislation maximum limit (200 mg/kg). Comparison of each type of commercial product with its homemade counterpart baby food evidenced significant differences (p < 0.05) in average nitrates levels in favor of the first type. Apart from determining and comparing the levels of nitrates in the baby food samples also risk assessment for an average 6-months old infant to nitrates exposure was conducted. The estimated nitrates intake with a typical portion of 200g of baby food ranged between 6% and 25.7% of acceptable daily intake for commercial and from 18.0% to 80.3% for homemade ones.