Salt content of food

It’s so tempting to salt the baby’s food to make it tastier! I am careful about my husband’s salt intake so I suppose that I should also be careful about the baby’s. How much salt is too much?

Remember that your taste buds have been taught to like the taste of salt. If your baby has never had salted food, then there is no reason for baby to find the food bland. In fact, not salting food gives baby the chance to learn to enjoy the real taste of individual foods.

Everyone needs salt to function well. However the amount of salt required is very small. Large amounts of salt are likely to place strain on the kidneys. In addition, there is evidence that large amounts of salt consumed during infancy can predispose a child to blood pressure problems later in life, especially if there is a family history of high blood pressure.

Breast milk has extremely low levels of sodium, considerably lower than the amount found in cow’s milk. This gives an indication of how little salt is required in a healthy diet. The majority of formulas contain very low salt contents as well.

Once baby is eating processed foods you need to take care that baby is not eating high levels of salt without you realising it. Checking labels can be a surprising exercise, as many foods are laden with salt. For a baby under one year, 500milligrams of salt is a good ballpark figure to stick to. For this reason, it is preferable to give baby as little processed foods as possible when first embarking on solids.