Can I put salt in my baby's food?

Question: Can I put salt in my baby's food?

Answer: You should not add salt to your baby's food in the first year as this may damage her kidneys. In the first six months of life your baby needs less than 1g of salt per day, which she will usually obtain from breastmilk or formula milk. Between seven and 12 months this increases slightly to around 1g. Toddlers aged one to three years need less than 2g.

To stay within these recommendations you should aim to:

• limit salty foods in your baby's diet

• don't add salt during cooking and at the table.

• limit processed foods, such as ready meals, pies, biscuits, crackers, soups, gravies, sauces, pizza, tinned vegetables, cheese, bacon and crisps, which are all very high in salt, and offer low-salt alternatives.

Those foods made specifically for babies, such as jar foods and infant cereals, have a low salt content, as salt is not added during processing. These should not be confused with foods aimed at older children. These can be highly processed and have a high salt content and are not therefore suitable for your baby.

If you do choose to offer your baby or toddler high-salt foods, it is recommended that you only offer small amounts occasionally.

By law salt has to be labelled on all manufactured foods unless they are exempt from labelling such as goods bought from a delicatessen or bakery, where they are sold loose. Salt is usually labelled as sodium on food labels: 1g of sodium is equivalent to 2.55g of salt. Read food labels carefully and aim to choose those foods with a sodium content of no more than 0.1g of sodium per 100g.

Suitable low-salt foods for your baby include fruit, vegetables and salad, plain meat, poultry and fish, eggs, pulses and milk. Whether they are fresh, tinned or frozen shouldn't make a difference as long as they have no added salt (tinned vegetables often have salt added so be especially careful to check these). Rice and dried pastas are also low in salt provided they have had no salt added during cooking. Make a habit of reading food labels, and you will soon get to know which are the most suitable foods to buy.

For Mia, it is a big "NO NO" to add salt in her porridge. To make Mia's porridge more tasty, I usually add potato, carrot, veg or fish only. Kalau kita rasa memang tak sedap kan, tawar semacam jerk. Tapi Mia habis jer satu mangkuk. Hehehe..