Salt content

[maswera]

I know the advice is very much 'don't add salt to your baby's food', but what do you do about the salt content of things like bread, cheese, etc? Do you work out how much sodium is in each serving of everything or just go with a 'on averages it will work out ok' kind of approach?

I don't worry too much - they eat such small amounts at first anyway.

I think the advice is aimed at the lowest possible understanding if you see what i mean - how many people would really feed a baby crisps or add salt to their meal? If you have any knowledge or indeed passion for food and eating then you'll know what things to avoid or possibly dont eat them yourself anyway (we don't eat crisps 'cos we think they're fairly disgusting and pointless). Our family eat what I like to think of as a normal diet but I know it actually isn't all that normal - the people I work with, and in fact most people I know appear to not eat food at all but orange coloured stuff from packets. I enjoy cooking and eating so we just all eat the same things. I use spices and herbs to flavour dishes so I don't use any salt or stock cubes in cooking as I just don't think you need to. i tend to use either wine or tomatoes in things like risottos, stews, curries etc and gravy (juices from meat as opposed to random brown stuff) doesn't need any additional flavouring if it's well condensed or if you don't add much liquid to deglaze the roasting pan in the first place. You can always add a little wine or balsamic vinegar for deeper colour and more acidic taste, or a tiny bit of dark (80%+) chocolate for a darker colour and creamy/thick texture. If you eat well and have a truly balanced diet I don't think you need worry about cheese and bread - how much bread are you eating? We eat roughly a half loaf a week between myself partner and LO. I don't eat bread every day as even the best stuff or homemade is really of very little nutritional value and I don't need the carbohydrates at the moment and I'm not doing much exercise. LO has roughly a half slice a day as she needs the carbohydrate and possibly a piece of hard cheese but that's about it for her daily salt content, unless you count traces in cream cheese and water biscuits or sodium in bananas. She's 9 MO. I think it's natural to worry particularly when they are only 6 MO or so, but honestly if you eat well anyway there is not need to count the mgs of salt content!

HV gave us a list of stuff showing what was a large amount of something and what was a low amount.

0.1g per 100g is a small amount of salt - 1g is a large amount. I tend to check everything I buy and go for the smaller amount stuff. You have too take into account portion sizes but as a general rule I find it ok.