The best time for babies to eat salt

Salt is the first of all tastes. If there is no salt in the food or the amount is inappropriate, the taste will be difficult to accept. However, according to the 2022 version of the \”Feeding Guidelines for Infants and Young Children Aged 7-24 Months\” released by the World Health Organization earlier, not only are there great differences in salt intake between adults and children, but it is also recommended that children under 1 year old should not eat it. Salt, the amount should also be controlled after 1 year old. There were previous news reports that Ms. Li from Yantai City saw that her 8-month-old daughter seemed to be weak and unmotivated, so she started chatting with her next-door neighbor Aunt Liu. When Aunt Liu heard that she was only feeding her child white porridge, she quickly advised her: \”Now that she is sweating in the summer, we can\’t just feed her white porridge. Add some salt to strengthen her strength.\” She originally believed that the advice in parenting materials was not enough. 1 Ms. Li, who is 2 years old and whose children should not eat salt, decided to add salt to her daughter\’s porridge after hearing the advice \”We adults sweat a lot and have no strength. We need to drink some salt water.\” Moreover, in order to achieve the effect of \”eating salt to make you stronger\”, a lot is added. Unexpectedly, after only three days of feeding, my daughter was sent to the hospital. What\’s even more unfortunate is that after some rescue efforts by doctors, they still couldn\’t save the child\’s fragile life. The doctor concluded that the child who was only 8 months old consumed too much salt, resulting in excessive sodium intake, which put an excessive burden on the kidneys and eventually lost his life. In fact, it is not uncommon for children to be put in danger due to improper use of salt. Previously, a baby girl in Taiwan lost her life because her aunt added too much salt to her feed. At the same time, her aunt was also sentenced to jail. Precisely because tragedies continue to occur, parents are reminded to know when their children can eat salt and what is the appropriate amount! When can children eat salt? What is the appropriate amount? According to the 2022 edition of the \”Feeding Guidelines for Infants and Young Children Aged 7-24 Months\” and the \”Chinese Dietary Guidelines for Infants and Young Children (2022)\”, for infants and young children, food should be original, and try not to add sugar or salt, and fats and oils should also be used. A small amount. At the same time, specific opinions on the amount of salt are given for children of different ages. Scientific parenting knowledge: The complete collection of Infant and Child Home Care Encyclopedia videos. The sodium intake of babies aged 7 to 12 months is about 350 mg/d per day. The sodium chloride content of edible salt on the market today is about 1 gram containing 400 mg. To put it into perspective, that means the daily salt intake should not exceed 1 gram. Moreover, generally rice, cereals, some meats, formula milk, breast milk and other foods also contain a certain amount of sodium. Therefore, babies under 1 year old will not be deficient even if they do not eat salt. Eating salt will cause the body to eliminate sodium. The burden on the kidneys increases, affecting health. It is not difficult to see from the above that in fact, children’s demand for salt is not very high. Daily food can meet their demand for sodium. However, excessive sodium chloride contained in table salt, soy sauce, etc. will affect children’s health. If it increases the burden on the kidneys and heart, it will also affect the absorption of calcium, which is not conducive to bone development. It is worth noting that in addition to paying attention to the use of edible salt and soy sauce in daily life, there are also some \”invisible salts\” that parents also need to pay attention to. It is not advisable to give too much of these \”invisible salts\” to your babyAccording to nutrition, many daily foods are also \”big consumers\” of sodium. For example, the standard for noodles eaten by adults is that 1 gram contains 12 mg of sodium. This also reminds parents that if they buy noodles for their children, they should choose children’s low-sodium noodles. Dried meat, candied fruits, seaweed, canned foods, etc. are foods with extremely high sodium content. Even sweet candied fruits can have a sodium content of at least 30 mg per gram. At the same time, the sodium content of dried fruits such as walnuts and melon seeds that have been processed but not original is also similar. Finally, there are pickled foods such as sausages, bacon, and braised foods, which usually require the addition of a large amount of salt for processing, so you can imagine their high sodium content. I believe that many of the above-mentioned categories of \”big\” sodium-containing foods are loved by parents for their babies, so much so that they unknowingly harm their children\’s health. Tips: This also reminds parents that when preparing food for their children, they must be scientific and reasonable. While maintaining nutritional balance, they must also eat light! How to help children eat well and healthily? First, ensure food diversity. According to the recommendations given by the World Health Organization, children can eat more than 12 types of food every day, and no less than 25 types every week. If cereals are indispensable, you can prepare about 3 types every day, preferably with cereals, potatoes, beans, including rice, corn, sweet potatoes, etc. At the same time, you should prepare at least 300 to 500 grams of stem and leaf vegetables, 200 to 250 grams of fresh fruits, poultry, fish, lean meat, eggs, soy products rich in protein, minerals, trace elements, and calcium-rich products every day. Quality fresh milk, etc. Secondly, the food should be light and easy to digest. Dr. Ding Xiang, a well-known parenting expert, once pointed out that the period of infancy and early childhood is a sensitive period for taste. During this period, the taste of food eaten by babies will affect their eating tendencies in adulthood. At the same time, during this stage, the baby\’s taste bud cells are also very fragile and delicate. Excessive or irritating flavors are likely to make the taste buds unresponsive, which is not conducive to taste development. Therefore, during the period of infants and young children, the diet should be mainly light, which can not only protect the child\’s taste buds, but also make the child more willing to try different flavors. At the same time, because children’s digestive systems are not yet fully developed, they should mainly eat easily digestible foods to avoid food accumulation and digestive problems. Again, daily breakfast is essential. It is said that the best plan for the day begins in the morning. In the nutrition world, there is a saying of \”golden breakfast, silver lunch and copper dinner\”, which shows the importance of breakfast. At the same time, parenting experts also generally agree that children’s breakfast calories should account for more than 20% of the total daily calories. Therefore, parents should not ignore their children’s breakfast or solve it casually. It is still necessary to ensure that the variety is rich and healthy, such as common carbohydrate staple foods, eggs, milk, meat, beans, etc., to ensure the quality of your child\’s breakfast, in order to help his physical development! Finally, develop good eating habits. As educator Ye Shengtao said: \”Education is to help children develop good habits.\” This sentence is also true for managing children\’s diet. After all, no matter how scientific, reasonable and nutritionally balanced the food prepared by parents is, if the child has picky eaters, anorexia and other bad eating habits, he may not eat the prepared food.Tips: Parents should pay attention to cultivating good eating habits when their children are still young, and should not be overly pampered or indulgent, such as chasing after feeding. Pillow parenting message: It is not uncommon to see news that babies may suffer physical problems or even lose their lives due to premature intake of salt or too much salt. This also warns parents to try not to give their young babies premature intake of salt, soy sauce and other condiments. According to expert recommendations, the amount should not exceed 1 gram per day after they are at least 1 year old. At the same time, paying attention to the food prepared for children and cultivating eating habits are also things that parents cannot ignore. Otherwise, it will affect the healthy growth of children and they will have no choice but to regret it!