AIBU about salt in recipes?

[fragola]

This morning I received the new edition of Tesco?s ?Toddler? magazine.

I was really surprised at how much salt was in recipes aimed at toddlers ? a noodle dish contained 2.1g, a meatball dish 2.6g for example. The current guidelines recommend that children aged between one and three should consume a maximum of 2g of salt per day. Even if a child eats only half a portion, they?d still be eating more than half of their allowance in just one meal.

In the snack section, there were cheese and marmite twists at 0.5g per twist, and mini quiche lorraines and mini sausage and apple pies at 0.7g each. For just one snack!

What also bothered me was that each recipe had nutritional information with ?percentages of your daily amounts? shown, using adult guidelines. I know that it says ?your guideline daily amount? (in small text underneath) and not ?your toddlers?, but I still thought that it was inappropriate in a magazine aimed at feeding toddlers and could give a misleading impression of how much salt (and calories for that matter!) is healthy for a small child.

So I sent them an email outlining the above. And now I feel a bit silly...

My parents had no idea how much salt (or anything else!) was in the food we ate. They just fed us without a second thought. And to use a much overused expression, it never did us any harm!

And does it really matter how much salt is in a recipe? It?s not as if kids are going to be eating them every day.

So am I being unreasonably over-precious and do I need to find something better to do with my time?

I get equally cross about kids recipes and food aimed at kids.

I always make it without the suggested amounts and it tastes fine!

I think you're right to point it out as it's a magazine aimed at parents of toddlers and recipes for toddlers.

I don't tend to worry about it now DS is 3 but I tried broadly to keep within guidelines, it's good to be aware of them. I didn't freak out if he had a mcdonalds but didn't give it to him every day... that sort of thing.

YANBU. It's perfectly possible to cook healthy meals at home without excess salt and keep little ones within the guidelines. I'm far more about salt than about sugar. Then again, my mum's beein involved with a case of a very young child who was left very very poorly following a salt overdose so I've seen the extreme of teh damage salt can do.

YANBU

foods they suggest should be suitable for who they are suggesting them for

Unless it's chips. I don't put salt in or on anything. I don't see a need tbh. Surely theres enough of it in what we eat anyway.

YANBU. I've had high blood pressure since I was in my early 20's and am staggered at the amount of salt in stuff. It absolutely shouldn't be in recipes intended for children. In answer to the point that our parents didn't consider how much salt was in our diets and it did us no harm. That's hard to quantify because any problems aren't likely to manifest until middle age and beyond.

YANBU. The only salt used in our house is in pasta water or when baking bread. If we need to add salt to food eg soup, we do so with our portions and not DDs.

I noticed before on a pack of jellytots it had the % of RDA for adults not children.

IMO foods aimed at children should have the % of childrens RDA. Not just with salt. I also dont see the need for salt in toddler meals.

Yanbu - the amount of salt in prepackaged food is ridiculous no matter who it's aimed at. It's why I far prefer to cook for dd myself, ensuring nothing too salty goes in.

There's a place for salt in everyone's diet, but if you're buying processed food it'll be higher in salt because they use salt to improve the flavour of the product, and as a preservative to make it last longer on the shelf.

The only way I can conceive of there being that much salt in those recipes is if the recipes say "Add 1 jar Tesco Own Brand product to X".

There's an underlying cynical reason for all this salt -

That it gets toddlers habituated to the higher salt levels in cheaper processed and ready made supermarket own meals. The salt is used to mask the lack of flavour caused by inferior other ingredients and the manufacturing methods.

YANBU. I've always said 'I don't add salt to food' like some other OPs and assumed this was good. Since weaning DD I've become increasingly concerned about the amount of salt and shocked at the amount in processed food.

Weaning DD has been so good for my health as I cook everything except bread from scratch now and have massively cut my salt intake.

My SIL, who is a pediatric nurse, sent me a cook book for toddlers and there was not ONE RECIPE in it without either salt or sugar. Totally bizarre. I never used it. I don't understand the need for it. DD happily eats anything except hairy fruit. She doesn't need a load of salt and sugar.

Like Pastabee we don't eat much processed stuff and i really notice how salty everything is when we do

eg, was feeling lazy and knocked up a quick spag bol the other day using a jar of sauce and a tin of crushed toms. Added no salt to the dish or to the pasta water...coz i knew there was salt in there

just had the leftovers for lunch and spent the whole time thinking it was a bit salty!

if you eat a lot of processed sauces etc you must intake masses of the stuff!

when i lived on ready meals i never noticed salt - you def get immune to the taste

YANBU - quoting adult RDA for toddler recipes is just wrong.

I am far from being anti-salt, as I think a lot of food does need it, and so do we, but I have surprised myself at how my tastes have changed since cutting it out down significantly during weaning. I can't stand Halloumi cheese any more .

@ fragola.
Your information is spot on. Between 1 and 2 grams a day for babies till the age of three. Which is ample. The reason for salt is that it keeps the veins elastic! Would you believe.
So better keep off ready meals and certain snacks.
I have a good friend who does NOT use salt, does not SMOKE, does not DRINK.
His work is manual 8 hours a day.
He has the highest blood pressure of anybody I know.
Another good friend who has not used salt for 40 years, not even in cooking , has just had a massive stroke.
Draw your own conclusions.
The info about the right amount of salt keeping the veins elastic comes from a Russian doctor by the way.

I never add salt to pasta when cooking and it tastes just fine, I figure the sauce has enough and the family doesn't need extra. I also cook veg without adding salt (but I do add a small amount to potatoes to boil them) Drives my salt happy mother barmy now when my Mother serves veg to Dd she complains it's too salty which I think is hilarious.
I started cooking without salt so I could feed whatever I made to the babies in the house and never looked back.
I eat a little extra salty food myself as I have horribly low BP and it seems to help.

I watch TV chefs and am astonished at he huge amount of salt they "just season" with.

How do people cook without salt?? DH is a science and uses loads of salt to cook potatoes - something to do with osmosis. Just because it's cooked in salt doesn't mean it absorbs it and increases your salt intake. He says it's often required to bring out the flavour of what you're cooking. In fact, he does a whole series of science lessons on how to cook the perfect roast dinner.

I do like a little sprinkle of sea salt and pepper on a tomato salad...sea salt is nice, but it really has to be a little sprinkle. I can't stand most cereals and biscuits as I'm sure you can taste the salt in them.

YANBU I got that magazine today and thought exactly the same thing!

I had a bit of a moment with my HV when DS was small because she was telling me how marmite on toast was a good source of vitamin B, I said "its a good source of salt", she looked like I'd slapped her... But honestly is that really a good suggestion of what to give a baby who is just starting on solids?!

I was really shocked to find out recently that a slice of bread has the same amount of salt in as a packet of ready salted crisps! I made my own for a bit but have become lazy now I just try and limit how much I give DS

good for you for pointing this out to Tesco, I doubt they'll do anything as a lot of the 'baby' food they sell is loaded with crap but they should be told!

Thanks everyone, glad to know I'm not overreacting!

The recipes don't include salt as an ingredient, they just include salty things!

The meatballs use 2tbs of soy sauce along with tomato ketchup.

The "mummy's pot noodles" use 250ml of chicken stock and 3tsp of soy sauce - this is for just 2 portions!

@ fragola
So sorry , forgot to say don't bother with Cheffy Seasalt.!!!!!!
Seasalt does not contain the iodine we need.
Nor does Saxa Table Salt. Buy Cerebos.

chicaguapa

How do people cook without salt?? shock DH is a science and uses loads of salt to cook potatoes - something to do with osmosis. Just because it's cooked in salt doesn't mean it absorbs it and increases your salt intake. He says it's often required to bring out the flavour of what you're cooking. In fact, he does a whole series of science lessons on how to cook the perfect roast dinner. grin

Completely agree, salt is an essential part of cooking and this freakish attitude we have over here to it isn't healthy.

in the magazine is it advertising tescos ready made stuff or is it recipies for these things?