Every week I stand up in front of lovely groups of parents who have signed up to our weaning workshop and we teach them everything there is to know about weaning. And every week, we discuss salt and how important it is to make sure our babies are not consuming enough. I something stand there thinking that I must sound like a stuck record as I try to make it clear that too much salt is not good – I’m not trying to sound too “preachy” I promise!
What actually is salt?
Without getting too scientific, common salt is a mineral which is comprised predominantly from sodium chloride and yes, we do need some salt in our bodies to help with many different functions including the transmission of nerve impulses and maintaining a balance of fluid in our bodies. But, too much salt can have a very detrimental effect on our bodies, especially the affect it can have on bodies, especially the affect it can have on our kidneys.
How does our body use it?
Our bodies are an amazing machine, and the kidneys are paramount at helping keep our amazing bodies – well, amazing! The role of the kidneys is to remove unwanted and toxic fluid from our blood in a filtering system and to do that, a delicate balance of sodium (found in salt) and potassium are needed and are essential in this process. But – and here comes the negative part – too much sodium can completely corrupt this process. What does this mean? Your kidneys reduce their ability to remove this excess and unwanted fluid and this is then stored causing high blood pressure and strain on the delicate vessels leading to your kidneys. If this continues, and high blood pressure is constant, it could lead to kidney failure, strokes and heart disease.
So – that’s why we “bang on about it” – in someone so small the kidneys are young and immature.
So how much salt should our weaning babies have?
From 6 months, our babies need no more than 1g of salt per day which is the equivalent of 2 slices of bread. It is important to point out that salt is common in products such as bread and cheese so just make sure they are not having too many cheese sandwiches each day! As a general guide, a food is high in salt if it has more than 1.5g of salt per 100g and low in salt if it contains less than 0.3g of salt per 100g.
Unfortunately, salt is present in large amounts in processed foods which is why we think it’s so important to make your own foods where you can. A green pesto bought from the supermarket contains 2g of salt per 100g! So, by making your own pesto (babies love it), you can really help to reduce the salt intake for your little ones. If you don’t know how to make pesto, I have a recipe here.
When I was training as Nutritionist, I spent 3 year working with the amazing Susan Malcolm who was ASDA’s Nutritionist there at Head Office. We ran a project alongside the organisation CASH (Consensus for Action on Salt and Health) where we worked with suppliers to reduce the salt content of over 2000 of their products and it was very successful. However, this was just a small part in this battle that we face with manufacturers, suppliers and the supermarkets. I know it can be done but it still isn’t enough and more and more products still contain too much salt. Cereal for goodness sake – why on earth does salt even appear!? Kellogg’s cornflakes contain 1.13g of salt per 100g – nearly making it a high salt product! Someone please help me here – It’s crazy! So to those who have been attending my workshops, I am sorry if I did “bang on about salt” but I hope from reading this, that you understand why!
How can we reduce salt for our little ones?
So, in order to help you guys as you are starting to wean or if you are weaning already, our top tips to reduce the salt intake for your little ones (and maybe yourselves!) are as follows:
- Check all labelling of products. The traffic light system is a good indication of a high, medium or low salt content product.
- Try and make your foods from scratch if you can, especially things like sauces which can be very high in salt.
- Don’t add extra salt to dishes for your little ones.
- Use very low salt stock cubes. Knorr have just released a Zero Salt range in beef, chicken and veg flavours. Kallo do a “very low salt” range.
- Avoid salty gravies and things like soy sauce and fish sauce.
- Use un-salted butter.
- Avoid processed salty meats such as ham, bacon, salamis and chorizo. When the second ingredient on a packet of chorizo is salt and 100g contains 3.5g of salt – this is NOT advisable as a suitable food for a baby or child.
- Don’t remove cheese or bread from the diet at all, but just don’t give your little ones lots of both each day. And look out for low salt cheeses such as the Indian cheese Paneer which is very low salt.
- Don’t add salt to the water if you are cooking pasta or veg.
- Don’t add extra salt into anything your baby is going to be eating.