To just feed baby/toddler what I eat?

[Inmydreams88]

I have a 15 month old and have always made his food at home from scratch since 6 months. For the first 6 months of weaning I used no salt stock cubes, and made his food slightly different from ours if there was high salt things in it, like soy sauce etc

When he turned one I relaxed on this a-bit and started to use normal stock cubes and to give him more of what I make for my husband and I. Everything I make is cooked from scratch, and I still don’t add salt to his portion but I do give him normal stock cubes and reduced salt gravy granules.

My friend who has a similar age baby told me she felt very guilty about using the pouches after watching the Panorama documentary and asked me for a recipe for something I told her I made for my son. It included one vegetable stock pot. After I sent the recipe she basically said that she couldn’t feed that to her child because it would be way too much salt for them and it was worse than the pouches.

Now it’s got me thinking I’ve done harm
to my child’s kidneys by giving him stuff made from a stock cube. What age would you start allowing your child to have food made with a stock cube?

I did the same as you OP. They have such a small portion i didn’t worry.

It’s good that the Panorama programmed highlighted the high sugar content and lack of iron in the vast majority of pouches because some people just didn’t know. But it has opened a can of worms!
I like the idea of feeding what you eat, providing it’s a healthy meal. If your toddler is consuming the entire meal with the entire stock pot in then that is different to having a portion. Sure it would be fine providing they don’t exceed the allowance for salt in the day.
Check out Charlotte Stirling-Reed’s recipes on Instagram/her blog :)

I did the same as you. Your son is one, a stock cube in a meal will be fine. Shame on her, I think you should just not reply so you don’t say anything you regret!

I did the same as you OP.

One meal for the whole family. They would try and eat anything so the benefits were unfussy children and now teens.

An oxo stock cube contains 1.25g of salt. A one year old’s daily recommend is 2g. I doubt he eats a portion containing an entire stock cube – it’s fine.

I was entirely the same. I started using ordinary stock cubes about 10 months once DC was entirely weaned.

It's not a like for like- yes those pouches aren't particularly high in salt but they're not high in anything good either! A beef stew pouch will be mostly squished vegetables, whereas a beef stew at home will be much more rich in iron and nutrients.
Obviously as well the child will.not be having a whole stock cubes worth of stew, they will.be having a small portion.

I would just tell her to substitute with zero salt stock cubes if she is particularly concerned.

I think there's between 4-5g of salt in a typical stock pot but I'd use one of these for a large dish of chilli, soup or whatever so typically enough for maybe 6 people. So less than 1g of salt per adult portion and then a 1 year old would eat maybe a third to max a half of an adult portion. That's 0.3g to 0.4 of salt as a high estimate. I think it's fine.

What you're doing is fine. If 1tsp of salt was too much for kids then they'd say the limit was 0.5 tsp. Kids are resilient.

The stock cube was for the entire meal. So it would feed around 4 adult portions or about 8-10 toddler portions.

We always let our babies eat food made with stock cubes from the start of weaning. Used to try and use the low salt ones but never been massively strict on it. As others have said, if you work out how much salt is in a stock cube and what portion size they end up having, considering the recommended daily limit after 1 is 2g a day they're probably getting nowhere near that. To be honest the salt levels in store bought bread/bagels/crumpets used to worry me more 😅

so look at the ingredients on the stock cube box and divide it by 8-10?

As long as you’re not giving him OXO cubes to suck on that what you’re doing is fine!

I very rarely use stock cubes, even for adults. But "1 stock cube" means nothing in itself, it depends on the volume of food you are making, and if you add any more salt to the dish.
IMO stock cubes rarely bring anything anyway, and using herbs/salt if required achieve the same thing but you can control how much you put in, or add it to your plate later.

For peace of mind, I would recommend you calculate the amount of salt/sodium in a portion, and compare it with the recommendation online. That's what I'd do anyway, then you know whether the specific cube you're using, in the amount you're using it, is ok or not for your child.

It will be absolutely fine. Keep in doing what you're doing.

She’s being ridiculous

I did the same as you. Life's too short.

Also a bit rich of her to have been using pouches (fair enough has stopped now) and then say your home cooked food is not healthy!

Your friend can’t calculate the salt per portion

A stock cube in a meal that is for a few people will not have any consequences! Your friend is not using her common sense.
People didn’t always know the nutritional value of foods but fed their kids home cooked wholesome foods. Don’t obsess over this sort of thing.