What does no salt in babies foods actually mean?

[galaxybaby]

I planned to post this today but I see another poster beat me too it last night!😂 so this is now a thread inspired by another thread (as well as some of the comments).

I wanted to know what people do regarding salt in babies food and what does it actually mean when the guidance says that babies shouldn't have much salt. Does it mean that you can cook a meal from scratch with whatever ingredients but you shouldn't add salt on top of their food once it's cooked? Or does it mean when cooking from scratch you shouldn't add any salt at all whilst cooking?

If it's the latter then how the hell does that actually work? I'm West Indian and we don't use salt and pepper to season, we use loads of different seasonings. For example, I made spag bol the other day and that included all purpose seasoning, beef seasoning and a beef stock cube as well as a jar of pasta sauce. All these seasonings have salt in them so does that mean I shouldn't be using it?

DD is only 8 months but she loved it when I gave it to her😁 (tried to give her as much mince as possible opposed to mince and sauce).

I don't mean to be annoying as I can see there's literally a similar thread going on right now but I'd really like to know in what way you shouldn't add salt to a baby's food. I think it'll literally be impossible for my household as there's always salt in our food due to the chosen seasoning. Thanks

@galaxybaby

" Doesn't your food permanently taste bland" nope, it tastes of the food we choose to eat rather than a spoon of salt attached to some food.

@takenforgrantednana not sure if you've actually had seasoned food before but it doesn't taste of salt... it tastes of the actual food we're eating too. All the seasoning does it help the flavour to stand out, especially as you put it in with the food whilst it's cooking

of course i have had it, when out in a resturant and the chefs have ignored my request! all i can taste is salt and nothing but more salt, the only thing i want to taste is the food and the only thing i want in the food is the taste of how it grew, if i wanted carrots to taste of beetroot i would ask for beetroot, same thing to me is if i wanted them to taste of salt then i would ask for salt not carrots

My FIL - a doctor - was very sceptical of the recommendations on salt and babies/toddlers. The research I did suggests that the recommendations are indeed not particularly evidence based:

lilynicholsrdn.com/salt-baby-food-infant-sodium-requirements/

mylittleeater.com/salt/

What I did with my babies was not feed them anything really salty -e.g. I wouldn't add salt to their portions - but I didn't worry about things like cheddar (some of my friends do) or store bought sauces sometimes

It’s no salt. I wouldn’t add any of those things into Bolognese

Onions, carrots, celery, garlic, beef mince, tin tomatoes, oregano. That’s a regular Bolognese. No stocks, no jars sauces, no salty extra seasonings.
That’s what Ds ( age 1) eats. Dh and I then add any salt to our portion afterwards.

@Caspianberg

It’s no salt. I wouldn’t add any of those things into Bolognese

Onions, carrots, celery, garlic, beef mince, tin tomatoes, oregano. That’s a regular Bolognese. No stocks, no jars sauces, no salty extra seasonings.
That’s what Ds ( age 1) eats. Dh and I then add any salt to our portion afterwards.

yes same thing here for us except i dont use garlic at all, i dont even put salt into pasta when its cooking. i think the last time i used my tub of salt was to get rid of some ants outside our house!

I do what a PP has suggested. If making spag Bol or something, I will brown off the mince onions etc as normal & then separate baby her own portion and just use seasonings like paprika, etc. In my own food I will then add Maggi, all purpose etc. Same with seasoning chicken or doing anything else really. Always separate baby's and cook it separately but at the same time so it doesn't generate any extra work.

I just used (and still do as actually I found they work fine) low-salt stock and don't generally add salt when cooking unless I portion off a bit for DD beforehand. With bolognese it's quite easy to take a small amount out anyway and then add salt to the main portion. But I found that I didn't actually notice as much as I thought I would anyway. I still used herbs, spices, pepper, etc.

She's nearly 3 now so I'm more relaxed about it anyway. But when she was tiny I was quite careful about it as it's pretty easy to avoid anyway.

I find jar sauces are pretty crap for bolognese anyway. They're never as nice as making the sauce from scratch. I used to use them a lot but then my mum made me a super bolognese and I realised it was much nicer and haven't used them since!

Jars also often have a lot of sugar in them which is worth looking out for

I make most of DS meals from scratch and will use low salt stock cubes, tinned tomatoes etc instead of pre prepared sauces in things like bolognase, chilli con carne, stews. I usually make a huge amount so it does adult meals too but I add all the salt and any spices after I've portioned off my baby's meals.

I dont really care how boring my food is now so long as I streamline the cooking as much as possible I'm happy!

Once they turn 1 it is recommend no more than 2g per day which is not much. Things like eggs, meat and shop bought crackers/breadsticks etc have salt in so I think we probably hit this most days without adding salt to meals I cook.

I find this website super useful
www.srnutrition.co.uk/2021/08/how-much-salt-should-a-baby-have/

I don't generally add salt to my cooking, but when ds was little figured that 1 or 2 oxo cubes split into several meals was really not going to make a huge difference to his salt intake as the overall amount he was going to get was tiny.

Sounds like you add more than that, could you halve what you currently put in, or use just tinned tomatoes/passatta instead of a jar sauce. Or as pp have said just take out your child's portions before adding the salty stuff. I guess the other option is to make a completely separate batch for your child and freeze in little pots for future use.

It’s a bit of upfront effort, but for ease would you consider blending your own salt free versions of the seasonings you use? Then you can make recipes as usual, the only difference being you add the salt once you’ve removed the baby’s portion?

If you google All purpose seasoning recipes, there are various ones, including this salt free one:
www.allrecipes.com/recipe/232761/all-purpose-no-salt-seasoning-mix/

We love Mexican food and got into making our own Mexican seasoning because it’s cheaper and less sugary than those Old El Paso sachets you can buy in the supermarket.

Personally I'm a big fan of well seasoned food. What I did when mine were babies was I used individual spices from jars to make my own spice blend without salt. Salt can easily be added at the end for adults. Or as someone else suggested, batch cook for the little one. I always kept a few jars or pouches in the house for when we had a takeaway or we were eating something the baby couldnt have

Seasoning is definitely so much more than just salt, that’s the thing. So it is an adjustment to cook with less or no salt but it’s absolutely possible and not flavourless.

I got used to food without salt although gradually went back to normal stock cubes, salt in vinaigrette, salt in pasta and potato water. It's a small price to pay for ease of weaning and encouraging good habits in your baby imo.