Haggis

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My 5 year old loves haggis and always has. He’s eaten it since he was 6 months old and has it on average once a fortnight. Sometimes with boiled egg and soldiers. He’ll happily have it for breakfast lunch or dinner. Friend said it’s highly processed so not good for him. I hadn’t given it a second thought. We get it from the local butcher and it’s so high in iron, protein and vitamin A that I thought it was a great thing for him to eat. Surely it’s only an issue if he was eating it every day. She said the salt levels are too high/it’s heavily process but he also eats things like German salami, bacon, black pudding, feta cheese, and olives which have a high salt content.

Do you think these things are fine in moderation for kids?

Saying ‘salty haggis is okay, because he’s already eating lots of other salty stuff’ is a really odd way of looking at it.

Haggis, salami and black pudding are also high in fat. deli meats in general are not supposed to be fed to kids because of the nitrates, same with bacon. Just because it’s from the butcher and high in protein and iron, it doesn’t mean it’s great for him to eat.

It’s all highly processed and salty, which is fine if he has one of these items occasionally, but if he’s eating these things on rotation, how often is he having high fat, salty items, is it a once or twice a week thing? Or will he have haggis one day, a fortnight later have salami and a fortnight after that black pudding?

In moderation its okay

I would definitely limit his eating haggis, as it is full of fat, salt, nitrates. But offal and organ meat is absolutely fine, and very healthy. Do you serve liver, faggots, tripe, bone stock etc? All excellent nutrition for growing bodies.

That wasn’t what I meant when I said that. I just mean he has other high salt foods in moderation. Not junk foods but things like I listed. Haggis is a favourite so that’s probably once a fortnight. On occasion more often. Black pudding less often as it’s not something we buy in a lot. Bacon maybe once a month. He likes feta cheese and sometimes has some crumbled on top of pasta but mostly he has cheddar, mozzarella or edam cheese.

What would the limit be? I feel like it’s so high in nutrients that having it once a fortnight is fine. He wouldn’t eat any of the other things you’ve listed.

Yes, I think once a fortnight, provided the rest of the diet is low in saturated fats and salt should not be harmful. But i wouldn’t be so quick to write off other organ meats, he may surprise you.

True. How do you serve them? It’s not something I would eat though so that’s a problem. We like to eat together so I wouldn’t be able to model eating it as I would heave! I know this is ridiculous because other people would argue the same about haggis

It regularly featured on school dinner menus when I was in P1.

It's fine, everything in moderation. And mash and neeps is good food too.

Once a fortnight is fine - it's not going to harm him. Lovely with mashed tatties and neeps, or mashed carrots and neeps.

Same here. He likes mince and tatties too. Just reminds me of school dinners and eating at my granny’s

it shouldn’t contain nitrates. Those are why ham, bacon etc aren’t healthy.

the last time I had haggis (stuffed into a chicken breast, ‘balmoral chicken’ - delicious) I wouldn’t have said it was particularly salty.

I really don’t think it’s remotely comparable to cured meats, and I’m not sure characterising it as ‘highly processed’ necessarily is either. It’s a dish made from recognisable ingredients chopped cooked together.

This was my thinking too. The bacon I agree with and he only has that about once a month and it’s two rashers with the fat cut off with eggs and a tattie scone maybe.

I hadn’t considered haggis to be highly processed or UPF either

I agree @ErrolTheDragon it can be quite high in saturated fats and salt, but if it's properly made it shouldn't contain nitrates.

This would be completely fine in my book.

I love your username 😊

And I wouldn’t consider it a UPF, just processed. If you look at Macsweens’ ingredients it’s all proper food.

I agree. I just got a bit worried about salt as we don’t keep an eye on that and just go by what we think seems ok. Since weaning I still don’t cook with salt. For example if I make bolognese or soup or something I don’t put salt in and use a low salt stock. Then we add salt to taste for our portions. But I don’t look at the specific salt intake in him eating haggis or olives or feta and other things.

TBH I don’t know anyone who kept on top of how many grams of salt their DC were getting past the age of 2. At 5 they should be eating whatever the rest of the family is eating, as long as it’s reasonably balanced and things that you know are high salt etc are in moderation, which is exactly what you’re doing.

This is my instinct. I feel like the things he eats that are high in salt are offset by him not having salty snacks and dinners are all low in salt except for the haggis.