When did you start adding salt to your child’s food?

[Hope54321]

When did you start adding salt to your child’s food?

I don't add salt, but I use ordinary stocks in stew and I put bisto gravy in my shepherd's pie etc. I've avtuaybworked out how much I put in and estimated that their portions are still under their salt requirement. I worried less about it once they turned one and were allowed 2grams. Sometimes we do go over slightly, but some days we are under. Bit of cheddar and shop bought bread it soon adds up. 😢

You wonder why all the Michelin starred chefs add salt when they're cooking when it makes no difference anyway.

@Etherealhedgehog

Omg this thread. The number of people who seem to think home cooked food is just as good with no salt added are exactly why Britain got a reputation for having such terrible food. I guess when people say times have changed and that reputation is no longer deserved, they don't live in MN-land (would love to see the reaction to this in the French or Italian equivalent of Mumsnet - they'd be horrified)

Agree This exactly why English food is not well regarded. Whereas Italian, French and Spanish food is not considered so.

We have a lot of good restaurants in the UK but by the sounds of it, our MN home cooks need to season their food . This will exclude English (Asian, Chinese, Caribbean etc style) cooking

I make lots of curries that get widely praised and I never add salt!

But if they're made with a curry paste there is already lots of salt in the paste, so it is unlikely to need additional salt.

Maybe some people who say they don't add salt to cooking already use lots of salty ingredients? Soy/oyster/black bean sauce, cheese, anchovies, stock cubes, salted butter, curry paste etc all contain quite a bit of salt already so if I'm cooking with these ingredients I often won't add extra salt, as it becomes too salty.

But the idea that you can make a soup or stew from scratch or boil potatoes or roast a joint and not add salt... I fear British cooking hasn't come as far as we think.

My mum would claim this. I thought I didn't like a whole load of foods until I left home and tried them actually cooked with seasoning - so much nicer! So it wasn't at all that I was used to salt as we never had it in cooking at home. It doesn't need to be a lot but some dishes taste a hell of a lot better with some salt in - mashed potatoes for example*

My mum always used salt. Her food always tasted the same. Spag bol, casserole, “curry”, it would be a stock cube, salt and pepper.

Once I left home and taught myself to use food’s natural flavouring, herbs, spices etc instead of salt food tasted so much nicer.

It isn’t as simple as salt= nicer. People have different tastes and enjoy different things. i prefer food without salt- and I’m not eating tastless mushy horrible food, i’m eating food my family and I enjoy, using alternatives to salt.

Why are people insisting everyone must prefer food with salt in? Some people don’t, and it doesn’t automatically mean their food tastes shit.

A high salt diet meant my dad died very young of heart disease. I am not going to add salt to my food because other people think it will taste better. i’ve tried it, and I don’t think it does.

It’s another case of people thinking their way is better, and refusing to accept not everyone feels the same way.

Salt does have health consequences, in much smaller quanitities than you’d think. The pp who adds 1/2 a tsp to mashed potatoes, thats 3g of salt, between a family of 4 that’s 0.75g each, which is nearly 1/5th of an adults daily allowance. Just for one portion of mash. If 2 of the family are children then it’s even higher.

@Haudyourwheesht

You wonder why all the Michelin starred chefs add salt when they're cooking when it makes no difference anyway.

I watch chefs on tv and am amazed at the amount of salt most use.

Restaurant food is far too often very salty and not nice at all. Recently I had a meal of salmon, potato dauphinoise, carrots, brocolli and green beans.

I could not eat it because it was so salty. The salmon tasted so strongly of salt it ruined it. The potatoes were also too salty. The veg not so bad but still not great. Just a complete waste of money

I never use salt in cooking but I do use salty ingredients like liquid seasoning, stock cubes!! It's the same as adding salt tho 🤦‍♀️

Just because I use salt does not mean I over salt things as then it would be too salty and disgusting

I've never tried zero salt stock cubes I may give them a go but they sound awful bland looking at the ingredients list

@ErrolTheDragon

Adding salt without first tasting the food may be considered rude.

Disagree.

It's a reflection on unrefined taste buds.

@Nomoreusernames1244 That's not a salt issue, that's a 'your mum was a questionable cook' issue.

Chefs that can't cook well often will use far too much salt as it covers up their inability to flavour well. I use some but rely on other flavours to pull a meal together.

It’s another batshit MN food thread!

Pasta needs salt. So do casseroles and spag Bol. So do lots of other things.

Recipes rarely don’t include salt. It’s not typically listed as an ingredient because it’s so fundamental.

🙄

Very confused. Do so many people really not put any salt in their food? Like zero salt? I'm very impressed but I could never do that.

Or do you add something else that contains salt like stock cubes, soya sauce, etc?

Op to answer your question before she 1 I added no salt and used nothing that contains salt in dd's food. After age 1 I started using stock cubes, which contains tons of salt so don't need any additional table salt (not even for adults). I think after age 2 or so she just ate what we ate and I so put salt in my cooking.

As stated above, only add salt to chips, raw tomatoes and eggs done every way. Of course there's salt in some of the ingredients I use in cooking, capers, fish sauce, soy etc but no, I don't add salt as a matter of course to anything, vegetables, pasta, a lasagne, cottage pie, a roast dinner.

I'm just watching an episode of Barefoot Contessa and wincing at the amount of salt Ina is putting in everything, Rick Stein is the same.

It's obviously personal taste - I don't like salty food. I like good food, and imo it doesn't need added salt to make it good.

Amazed at all the people who think no salt whatsoever is the healthiest way - we need salt for lots of purposes, like muscle and nerve function, fluid regulation, etc. It's like the people who claim that living on 400 calories a day comprised of a massive salad and a couple of ryvitas is actually being saintly.

If you think that adding salt means that everything just tastes of salt, then you're not using salt well.

And if you think you cook from scratch but never add salt: if you add soy sauce, miso, pesto, cheese, olives, butter, tuna, bacon, stock, mayo... Surprise! You're adding salt

Exactly - there's plenty salt in ingredients without adding more.....

Completely agree, but I'm mostly talking about the "my food never has any salt whatsoever and it's delicious! Aren't I an angel!" tone of a lot of posts! When you look at the ingredients that contain salt, a lot of food probably does have salt.

I'm not an amazing cook by any stretch but I'm good enough. I don't think everything needs salt but a lot of meals need some salt to not be bland. That's just the reality. People might prefer blander food, which is also fine.

It's the pretending to be holier than thou about it that is a bit