Is bought pasta sauce OK as an ingredient for ds (5 months)?

[Cinderellascarrieg]

ie: if I cook pasta for dh & myself, & use a Lloyd Grossman/Bertolli type sauce (usually I eke it out with assorted fresh sauteed veg & a tin of toms!), can I puree some for ds, or would it be too salty/sugary/oily?

He's a complete gannet & will wolf anything, but so far I've restricted him to homemade veg purees or jars of babyfood because I'm worried about added salt etc.

Depends on what's in it. If it's got Enumbers or other crap in it then I wouldn't but if it's just tomatoes and herbs then I'd have thought it would be fine.

What does it say on the ingredient list?

Could you thin ds's down with perhaps some milk to make it less "strong"?

I would personally say no. I would worry about the salt content and that that it wasn't suitable for that age.

Well, the jar I've got in front of me (Tesco bog standard)contains 1g salt per 125g product, & otherwise seems to be mostly tomatoes (bit of oil, onion, garlic etc). & I do always use it with lots of fresh veg & plain tinned toms, so it'd probably be about half that concentration of salt - say 0.5%? Is that excessive?

Yes, it does seem a little high - a baby over 6 months is only supposed to get 1g of salt per day. I'd stick to a jar or a veg puree for him tonight - maybe mix a bit of chopped pasta in with it for variety? (presuming you don't add salt to cook the pasta in)

Fair enough. He's on carrot puree this evening anyway, was just wondering as he keeps trying to pinch our food! May have to look into low salt sauces or something...wouldn't do dh & I any harm to cut down on salt ourselves.

Don't know if you're an annabel karmel fan or can't stand the sight of her, but from memory she does a rather nice napolitana-style pasta sauce in both the baby book and the family meal planner book... might be worth looking at?

TBH, I'm just resigned to not sharing meals until 1 year (which is when ds1 started sharing the majority with us - ds2 is 7 months old now). It's a bit of a pain now, but I get a bit paranoid about food content!

Well, I do think she makes rather a nice living stating the bleedin' obvious...possibly because I'm still at the stage of the Baby & Toddler book where every recipe is essentially 'steam veg of your choice till mushy, then puree'

But yes, I could definitely try doing my own sauce - I just find bought ones are less bland (probably BECAUSE of all the salt, sugar & oil in them!). Looks like a family healthy eating campaign might be in order!

LOL... yes know what you mean. What about something like a Nigel Slater tomato based pasta sauce recipe? Onions and herbs in it for anti-blandness and just skip out the seasoning when making it?

We used to have very little salt in our diets when ds1 was 1 year and I soon found I didn't miss it. Unfortunately it's crept up again as it's mattered less now ds1 is bigger and we've started to rely on more processed foods. We're due for a food makeover too, to be honest!

Carriesg, I'd say that pasta sauce is Ok, you're not going to give him the whole lot are you so he won't get anywhere near 1g will he? But it won't do any harm to not give it to him if you're remotely worried about it. Agree with you about Karmel. You could make a nice easy pasta sauce with onions, garlic, oregano and tinned tomatoes and freeze it in small pasta sauce sized portions. Sorry if this is stating the bleedin' obvious too though!

Hmmm. Lots of garlic & fresh basil maybe? Think my project for the week will be trawling thro' all my vegetarian cook books to develop The Ultimate Salt Free Tomato Pasta Sauce...& then cooking a large cauldron full for the freezer!

Thanks for the suggestions!

Woo hoo! Well when you've experimented with the ultimate can you post it here so we can all take advantage of your hard work, please?

Feeling really hungry now...