Salt in home cooked food

[PoptyPinnnngggg]

Hi all,

For a baby under the age of 12 months, would you feed the baby family meals that have been cooked with salt (e.g. salt added to cooking water, or added as seasoning during cooking), or would you omit the salt from the family meal altogether?

Lots of people say 'just give baby what you have e.g. spag bol, lasagne, shepherd's pie...' etc.

In reality are people cooking these family meals without salt in them? Or is baby getting the salted version?

I'll hold my hands up and say I cannot bear food to be cooked without salt and only season at the table - so I always cook my baby's food separately and it's such a faff (but I'd rather faff than omit the salt ).

So just interested in what everyone does in reality. Do most people these days have salt free family meals to share with baby?

@midnightstar66

Even Annabel karmel recommends plenty of salt in the pasta water for her macaroni cheese recipe (granted her recipe is for 12months and over, but still)

Fwiw the 'plenty' is referring to the volume of water not salt

Ah yes, I've just read it now, good point 🤦‍♀️

The salt you add to a meal is not what you need to be careful about, it's the salt in processed food.

A pinch of salt is 300g, if you add that to a meal for 3/4 people and then take out the baby's portion then the baby might be having, what... 10g?

Compare that to half a slice of toast which is 75mg!

Sorry those figures should all be in mg, not g!

@AbstractHeart

The salt you add to a meal is not what you need to be careful about, it's the salt in processed food.

A pinch of salt is 300g, if you add that to a meal for 3/4 people and then take out the baby's portion then the baby might be having, what... 10g?

Compare that to half a slice of toast which is 75mg!

Babies are supposed to have

@GreyhoundG1rl Yes, my point was that it's silly to worry so much about adding salt to home cooked food if you're then going to casually give your baby a slice of bread, a cracker, or a piece of cheese!

You're not going to get anywhere near the 1g limit by giving them 10mg at a time! They'd need to eat 100 portions a day!

True 😄

Under one years old I'd be very careful - an extreme example but I still remember the article someone posted here about a baby who died because the parents substituted quite 'normal' food like ready break for baby porridge.

We used low salt stock cubes and lots of herbs and spices - thankfully we now have a toddler who continues to enjoy the taste of cumin! and added salt afterwards to some things that needed it to our own portions, but it wasn't awful. Pepper is ok. I think we'd probably be a bit more relaxed with number two, but I wouldn't be cooking as normal: tasty food is generally tasty because it has lots of salt/butter in it.

@namechangemarch21

Under one years old I'd be very careful - an extreme example but I still remember the article someone posted here about a baby who died because the parents substituted quite 'normal' food like ready break for baby porridge.

We used low salt stock cubes and lots of herbs and spices - thankfully we now have a toddler who continues to enjoy the taste of cumin! and added salt afterwards to some things that needed it to our own portions, but it wasn't awful. Pepper is ok. I think we'd probably be a bit more relaxed with number two, but I wouldn't be cooking as normal: tasty food is generally tasty because it has lots of salt/butter in it.

Eh? Ready brek is absolutely fine for under 1's. It has no added salt or sugar. DS prefers weetabix but ready brek would do him no harm.

I cook without salt and season at the table. Sometimes I totally forget to season at all! I've noticed everything tastes much saltier since I've been using less. Eg) poached egg on toast. Normally I'd season that but I keep forgetting as the butter on my toast tastes so salty now!

@namechangemarch21

Under one years old I'd be very careful - an extreme example but I still remember the article someone posted here about a baby who died because the parents substituted quite 'normal' food like ready break for baby porridge.

We used low salt stock cubes and lots of herbs and spices - thankfully we now have a toddler who continues to enjoy the taste of cumin! and added salt afterwards to some things that needed it to our own portions, but it wasn't awful. Pepper is ok. I think we'd probably be a bit more relaxed with number two, but I wouldn't be cooking as normal: tasty food is generally tasty because it has lots of salt/butter in it.

That’s a pretty extreme example - if it’s the one I think the baby was 3 months and the parents also gave him instant mash and gravy

[quote AbstractHeart]@GreyhoundG1rl Yes, my point was that it's silly to worry so much about adding salt to home cooked food if you're then going to casually give your baby a slice of bread, a cracker, or a piece of cheese!

You're not going to get anywhere near the 1g limit by giving them 10mg at a time! They'd need to eat 100 portions a day![/quote]
My baby has some bread, crumpets etc and also cheese fairly often although not given as a piece but used within meals - it’s precisely because I know she has this that I don’t add any more salt anywhere else!

I try to balance it out a bit - yesterday wasn’t a great day salt wise as she had a leftover tuna pastry thing I’d made for lunch (ready made pastry contains salt) - it also had cheese in it, and then her dad made homemade pizzas and she had a bit of that for her dinner - with veg both times but still it wasn’t a particularly well balanced day. But she ate such small quantities - the pastry thing was mostly crumbled onto the floor and the she mostly just licked the pizza.

The tuna things were from the What Mummy Makes Cookbooks and I really rate them but do find they are very heavy on shop bought puff pastry and cheese in everything.

This lady is really good she’s on Instagram and also has blog posts about various different aspects of weaning and feeding children like which cheese is lowest in salt, which bread is best, which milk has most nutrients etc etc. As a slightly neurotic first time mum I’ve found her really helpful
www.srnutrition.co.uk/2019/10/how-much-salt-should-i-give-my-baby

We do a mixture. I don’t really like salty food anyway so generally cook with minimal.
If I make something like cottage pie I cook it as usual, with no stock cube. Then take out several baby sized portions ( some for that day, some extra to freeze if dh an do are having something less suitable). Then make a small amount of stock to add with Worcester sauce to the part for ours

Many things dh just salts his at the table and I rarely add.

Things like teriyaki sauce/soy I also add near the end of cooking, so can easily take baby some meat/ carbs/ veg out before.

I use a lot of herbs and spices still in cooking for baby.

If I make something suitable and extra like casserole/ something in sauce I usually freeze some for baby. Then like last night dh and I had takeaway, so I can just give baby something quick from freezer.

Plate theirs up, then add your salt and spices and cook for a bit longer for the adults

We cooked without salt and adults added salt at the table if needed.
We used very low salt stock cubes like the Kallo ones.
We don’t use much salt now but now DD is 3 we are less cautious and she does have things made with normal stock etc sometimes.

It’s not really much of a sacrifice to change your eating habits for a few years. And with salt once your taste adjusts you don’t miss it.

I cook things like Bolognese, casserole, curry etc without adding salt and then just add the salt to the adult portions afterwards.
I do use stock cubes and things which have salt in as they do need some salt, but I don't add extra salt for seasoning during cooking
If you want to cook something like pasta in very salty water you could just cook a separate portion for baby in plain water.

Have you got an article to back that up?

because it doesn’t sound accurate, just spreading misinformation.

Ready Brek is completely fine for babies.

Ready Brek had a different recipe when that happened. Is much healthier now. V. like baby porridge. They were also feeding the baby gravy from granules if I recall correctly.

& yeah OP, we probably did more cooking separately than salt free cooking but I did do some - chili for a while was no added salt, no salt stock and most of the spice was cayenne added at the table for instance! Weird but it doesn't last forever. (Although even now with an older kid I have to cook some things less spicy etc than I'd like - working on building up that tolerance!)

I have to watch myself as I'm a salt fiend. Although I don't salt pasta or rice water...defs not rice as use almost all basmati and I don't think it needs it.

Also the kid was three months old and getting it instead of formula! not comparable!