Is gravy terrible?

[comebacksummer]

hi all
Strange question I'm afraid!
I have two dds (2 and 4) who are dreadful eaters in terms of amount.. both small and eat very little. What they do eat is very healthy, lots of peppers, cucumber, ham etc for lunch and then your basic " meat/fish and two veg" and potatoes/rice for supper, BUT they will only eat this if it is smothered in gravy, or cheese sauce if it's fish. Is this a long-term problem? We're in such a habit now that I find it really hard to change- is the good nutrition they get from eating good red meat, chicken, fish, veg etc ovveriding the crap in the gravy??
advice please!

overriding, sorry

can you make a homemade healthy gravy? Not sure if gravy is good/bad...

No idea how to!! Any help appreciated!

gravy can be salty.

But you don't actually have that much, and if they don't get much salt in the rest of their diet (eg homemade bread, not many crisps, not much processed food etc) I would not be too concerned.

Have a look at the ingredients in the gravy (say maybe a few teaspoonfuls of bisto ?), work out how much salt it has, work out what proportion they have of the total (say you share it between 4 equally) - then you can see how much salt they actually get per serving - and decide if it is too much.

they don't have any processed foods but do have crisps occasionally ( 2 times p/w?) but I buy bread.. the seeded batch kind though although must say haven't checked the salt levels. anyone know what is an acceptable amount p/d for a child?

for adults it is 6g - so for a child substantially less - maybe 2g max.

Have a look at the bread - that is quite a large hidden source of salt I think. And also margerine (more than salted butter last time I looked ).

make your own gravy - take the dish the meat items have been cooked in, place on hot ring, add flour, stir round until brown and have soaked up all meat juices, then slowly while stirring add water from vegetable cooking, bring to boil and serve. Yes bought gravy is v. salty - wouldn't use it myself.