What is 'too salty'?

[jaffa19]

My DS is 7mo and have given some fork mash meals and porridge but mainly blw. But am being really tame as we eat such salty foods I don't trust myself to give him what we eat.

Can he eat ham/bacon/sausages? What about cured meats?

What about when eating out - food is often overseasoned. Yesterday in a restaurant w gave him bread but then realised it had rock salt crumbled on it!

He eats really well and so it's not like he's just having a suck and not digesting anything.

Thank you!

Babies can safely have up to 1g of salt a day.

My HV said from about 9months low salt stock cubes are fine as long as you are diluting the quantity. As baby stock cubes really dont taste of much.

My DS tends to do a mixture of finger food and rough mash. But i just make sure i have snacks with me when out and about that have no salt in them. My 9mo has had chorizo, bacon etc without any adverse effects. If i know something is slightly higher in salt i just make sure he has it in moderation and avoid giving it 2 days in a row!

I do know what you mean though, as its difficult to keep track of exactly how much is getting eaten!!!

The recommended limits of salt for babies are higher in proportion to their diet than for adults. Of course lots of adults are way above their recommended limits, but it's quite easy to stay below the baby limit even with bacon etc. Just don't give it to them all the time. If you're food is that salty, then you probably need to look at your own diet, as if they genuinely ate the same as you in the same ratios it would be you going over your recommended limits first.

Oh that makes me feel much better. My diet isn't overly salty but I rarely cook without stock for example, or miso or soy. I just assumed something like bacon might be too salty, but supposing it's in a tomato based pasta sauce it would be ok?
Thanks for your replies!

You can buy low salt stock.

If you make your own tomato based pasta sauce, tinned tomatoes are very low salt. I am not sure about ready made.

Um I think you mean bacon in homemade tomato sauce on rereading. Yes that would be fine. You can just not offer the bacon to your LO too. I never offer olives for example even if it's in a dish we are eating.

You don't need to panic too much about salt (unless you live off marmite by the jar obviously!), unless you are giving only really salty things all the time just balance it out as cheekyginger says.

So if you give him some tapas for lunch (with olives, chorizo, salty bread etc) then give him homemade low salt soup for dinner, or if he has a lot of bread for breakfast give him something low salt for lunch. We did BLW and I found it helpful to batch cook a load of healthy veggie packed low salt meals like pasta sauce/soups/lentil bolognaise to have in the the freezer, so if he had turned out to have eaten only the toast from breakfast and the beans and cheese from lunch, he could have 5 veg low salt lentil bol for tea and it would all be balanced out (I would just put extra Parmesan on ours if we so desired)

I wouldn't give a baby cured meats at all as they are full of salt, that's what is the main preservative. Most processed foods, including bread, have salt in them so it's best to either cook something for them without any salt at all.

Oops, missed the last part of the sentence... Meant to say either cook something especially for them or cook the family meal salt-free and add some to your own plate. That really helped us consume less salt in general, you get used to it and it's so much better for you. Salt is really bad, I remember reading a scary article on the guardian magazine on how salt is quite carcinogenic.

Agree with previous poster.

You can get low salt stock cubes and low salt soy sauce. Even better as you can cook with those then add salt for yourself later.

DS has bread and marmite which I'm conscious has salt in. We cook all of his meals from scratch so I know he gets no added salt that way.

You have to be careful as cheese is very salty too!

Hmm its hard work this!
Most of his meals so far have been cooked especially with no salt. Its so hard to do 'proper' blw though.
Re salt in my own food - it's certainly not too much for an adult ( and in any case, with a history of very low blood pressure, gp advised adding salt!)
Will try low salt soy, good idea. Have baby stock cubes - rank - will look out for low salt regular stock instead!

We adjusted what we eat to be baby friendly. I have quite a lot of cookbooks, and basically I went through them, looking for recipes that taste fine without salt. Or where salt can be stirred in at the last minute.

BLW doesn't have to mean baby literally eats what you do. I took it to mean that you don't mush it up and let baby decide what they want, which makes it easier for them to eat adult foods etc.

Iggly I'm super lazy and DD actually does share our meals

I wish DS shared ours! Now at 2.3 he turns his nose up at home (although eats anything when out at nursery/playdates )