Which things are too salty?

[dashoflime]

Just had a discussion with DH about toast. He was not keen on giving any to DS (8 mths) because of the small amount of salt in supermarket bread. I think its OK. The NHS website specifically suggests toast.

So a question for all of you (especially to the "He just eats what we eat" brigade):

Which food genuinely have too much salt for babies?

Bread?
Tinned Pasta Sauce?
Breakfast Cereal?

Anything else with hidden salt that I haven't thought of?

[supergreenuk]

I think mine had a pretty normal they eat what we eat diet except when it came to stock cubes, gravy etc. we never added salt to cooking. yes there is a lot of salt in bread but as long as there not eating it every meal it fine.

[Rosa]

Make your own pasta sauce, its cheap and easy ,Many tinned, jars, packet stuff is packed with salt and sugar and IMO should be avoided especially when weaning, processed cheese is bad as well. Try reading the labels and also use as much fresh stuff as you can.. Sliced bread is generally worse than the ' fresh ' stuff in supermarkets.

[Rosa]

Mine loved weetabix as kids ...avoided the rest as it was / is full of sugar

[dashoflime]

Cheese! Didn't even think of that!

Tomato Puree?

[YellowandGreenandRedandBlue]

I agree about bread, half a gram in an average slice. Sorry.

Baked beans, tinned stuff generally needs checking, any processed food, Pasta sauces, olives, cheese, tinned fish, any processed meat, pretty much all cereals, check biscuits and crackers as variable.

[Indith]

cheese etc is salty yes but try to look at a whole day o even 2/3 days rather than each food so have cheese but not on the same day as having sausages or ham for example. The only big no nos are adding salt.

[YellowandGreenandRedandBlue]

Sme tomato purée is fine, check your brand.

Some passata is salty, some fine.

[Indith]

tinned tuna etc just buy the one in spring water rather than brine. Cook mainly from scratch, use reduced salt stock and you'll be fine.

[FredFredGeorge]

Nothing is too salty, it's about diet not foods.

Bread is not a particularly good food for a baby in any case, they need fat and protein most importantly not carbs. Carbs from fruit and veg make more sense.

[Flisspaps]

I avoided nothing bar honey until 1yo, whole nuts and whole grapes.

Anything else was fine in moderation and in the context of a balanced diet.

[ENSMUM]

We were baby eats what we do types mostly, but were very careful with salt from 6 to 12 months. Recommended allowance 1.0 g so 0.5 g in a slice of bread is a lot. We use a breadmaker and so put very little salt in (experimented with no salt at all but that really didn't taste good!)

Tend to make own Tom sauce etc and not to use a lot of salt in our own food, so it wasn't too tricky but I did look more carefully at labels than usual. For cereal, baby Weetabix was pretty much the only dedicated baby food we bought, as it has no added salt or sugar.

[dashoflime]

Eek, its a bit of a minefield isn't it? Thanks for the replies though.

[gardenpixie32]

We make our own bread and I give the girls toast fingers at breakfast. We make brown and wholewheat bread which only has one teaspoon of salt in a large loaf. We set the timer and have fresh bread every morning. Tastes much nice than supermarket bread.

[dashoflime]

Right, think I'm gonna follow the supergreenuk plan. I gave DS a cube of cheese today so there'll be no more potential salt sources until tomorrow when he might get a slice of pitta bread.

[KatAndKit]

One slice of medium sliced bread in the loaf I have in my house has 0.3 grams of salt. Recommendation is one gram per day. So I would say bread is ok in moderation, say half a slice at a time a couple of times a week, spread with unsalted butter. A whole slice of bread would be a huge amount for a baby to have in one sitting anyway.

Hard cheese is high in salt so again I'd be thinking small amounts a couple of times a week. A little bit grated on top of something is not going to bust the salt allowance.

Processed food is very high in salt (ready meals, pre prepared sauces etc and frozen foods) so I would not give those things to a baby at all.

If a breakfast cereal had added salt I would not serve that, I would buy one without added salt.

I think you have to look at what they have over the course of a week and not at each individual meal. For example if we eat out or at someone else's house and I think the meal might have had some salt in it, I just watch what he has the rest of the day.