I feel like when you’re starting to introduce solids or even when you have a toddler, it can be very confusing. The recommendations on what you can give your child if you go online, they’ll say you know, feed your baby what you eat. But watch the salt, watch the sugar, watch seasonings, it can be too much for their gut. I’m going to really break it down for you all in this blog in an easy-to-understand way. And just explain to you how I kind of approach salt, seasonings and sugar for your child.
Salt
So we’re going to talk about salt first. So why is there a concern about salt, namely in your infant’s diet? So the three things you probably heard about salt in your infant or toddler diet is number one, too much salt can harm their kidneys. Number two, too much salt can predispose them to having high blood pressure later in life. And number three, eating a salty diet can make them only want salty foods and nothing else. I’m going to explain all three of these things and why they may or may not be true. So the first thing is that salt can harm an infant’s kidneys. There are no peer-reviewed studies showing that. Now that being said, when you start to introduce food for your infant, maybe around six months, their kidneys are formed. So they can handle the amount of salt that we’re giving them in the home-cooked meals that we give. We don’t have any data that says every baby will be able to handle X amount of sodium.
Amount of Salt
So when you see people say, well, you have to have this amount or this amount, that’s actually not data proven. This is just a theoretical thing that we want to basically have parents watch out for the sodium content. I don’t need you to sit there and calculate okay, well, my child had this for lunch, this for breakfast, okay, can’t do that. You’re looking at it in the food choices that you make and how you purchase items. So if you’re home cooking a meal and you add salt to that, I’m okay with that. If you’re adding tons of salt to every single meal, maybe you want to hold back and diversify the content, not just for the salt, but because maybe you want to diversify the different types of foods your child’s getting. In terms of the foods that you’re purchasing, I will be very, very wary of buying, packaged and processed foods, especially for your infant or toddler, because these can have high volumes of sodium and also sugar, which I’ll get into. But if you look at the packaging, and it says sodium, and that number’s pretty high, I want you to watch out for those things. Things like canned soups, any packaged foods, these are the things that can carry a lot of salt. Certain cheeses can also carry a lot of salt, right, these are packaged in a way. So you want to try to do certain cheeses that are low in sodium content. So these cheeses could include ricotta, swiss, fresh mozzarella, or cottage cheese
Salt in Cheese
So if you’re looking to give your child cheeses, you can go with those low sodium options. Now just say you accidentally or you did give your child cheddar cheese which does have high sodium content, you want to see well am I giving my child cheddar cheese every single meal. Now, this was one time, I don’t want to want you to panic if you did give your child a sodium-rich cheese, but you want to balance it out. The goal here is not to overwhelm their body with the same type of food, salty, salty foods, but you want to diversify it. And the other goal here is to try and home cook your meals because when you’re home cooking your meals, you know exactly how much seasoning you’re putting in and how much salt you’re putting in it too. The next point is that salt can predispose someone to high blood pressure. Now I do not want to dismiss that an adult diet that is high in sodium can cause high blood pressure. But this is all about balance. But it’s up to realizing the balance that you’re going to provide, everything in feeding our child comes to balance. We don’t want anything in too much quantity. That includes things that are healthy too.
Sugars
But now we need to talk about sugar, and I’m talking about added sugars. If you go to the grocery store, and you see a nutrition label like this, if you notice, it says added sugars, right? Added sugar means sugars that had to be added in the manufacturing process to make it sweet. Those are artificial sugars. Those are the sugars that I’m more concerned about than the sugars that are naturally occurring. So if you look at milk, for example, milk has lactose and lactose is a type of sugar. This is a naturally occurring sugar. I’m not as concerned about this. So when we’re talking about sugar, I’m talking about the added sugars that you’re putting into your children’s meals. So why is it important that we talk about added sugars? Well, the reality is too much-added sugar in our diets is not beneficial to our health not only for our kids but also for ourselves. It can put us at risk for obesity, high blood pressure, tooth decay, heart disease, high cholesterol, type two diabetes, and fatty liver, which is why we ask families to monitor the added sugars that we’re putting into our diets and our children’s diets
Sugar in fruits
So why are fruits okay? So things like fruits, vegetables, and dairy products, like milk, for example, have naturally occurring sugars in them, the sugars are okay, when we’re talking about fruit, fruit also has fiber in it. And fiber can help slow down that process of sugar metabolism that causes those spikes in sugar. If we were to eat more added sugars, that’s the concern. So we still don’t want to overdo fruit, we still don’t want to overdo milk, we still don’t want to overdo anything. But that’s what I said at the beginning of this blog. This whole thing is about moderation for everything. So how much is too much? Well, unfortunately, there’s no standard, well, this person or this person needs X amount of sugar because that’s as much as their body can handle. That’s as much as their body can metabolize. If we do any more than they’re going to have sugar spikes, that’s going to lead to obesity. So but we have to create some standards so that families can monitor the intake that they’re doing for sugar. So the American Academy of Pediatrics, their recommendation is that under two years of age, we want to avoid added sugars. And remember added sugars are anything where you look at the packaging, and it says added sugars on it.
So fruits, milk, those are not added sugars, these are naturally occurring sugars in those items. Now what if you have a one-year-old who has a birthday cake that obviously has added sugar in it, I don’t want you to feel guilted, I don’t want you to feel like you did something bad. I don’t want you to shame someone on the internet that you see do that. This is more on a regular basis, right? I don’t want you to have a regular basis that you’re giving your child under two added sugars. When we create rules for our children, you are in charge of those rules. If that means that on special occasions, you are giving your one-year-old a cookie, that’s fine. But you want that to be the exception and not the rule. That is how I feel about most things in parenting, right? It’s the exception that hey, I’m okay giving my child this sweet item. I’m okay with giving my child this cookie because we’re creating boundaries here. But what I don’t want is that that becomes a regular thing. Right? Okay, well, we gave them a cookie, now let’s just give them this juice and this item and this item You want to really monitor that sugar intake. When I talk about sugar intake, it’s that added sugars under two, but it’s okay to have fun. It’s okay to give ice cream, you can do all those things. But you in your mind have to set some boundaries and make sure that that’s not becoming the rule of the household for your two-year-old. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that for over two, you want to aim for less than 25 grams, or six teaspoons of added sugar a day for your child. But remember, this is a goal and this is just for you to monitor. As parents, we are so busy. I don’t need you to sit there and calculate and create all these Excel sheets and grids
Use natural Juices and Products
If you want to squeeze down an orange and give them orange juice, and you made that at home, that’s awesome. Or make like a fresh smoothie out of fresh fruit. That’s great. We don’t need to buy these fruit juices even if they’re marketed as 100% fruit juice because you can just give them naturally occurring fruits and make that at home. Also remember that sometimes for fruit juices, your doctor may recommend that as a medicine or treatment. For example, prune juice, prune juice has a high amount of sugar, it is naturally occurring sugar, I believe has about 22 grams of sugar per serving. Your doctor may recommend that because it can be something very helpful for constipation. So of course, we’re okay when used here and there for a therapeutic purpose. But you really want to be mindful of what you’re purchasing on a regular basis for everyday consumption.
My three take-homes. Number one, moderation is key, you’re going to hear me talk about that all the time as a pediatrician and as a fellow mom as well. It’s important to remember that it’s not all or none. I give my son a little bit of sugar here and there as a treat because we are able to create that boundary, we know that this is all we’re allowing, right? Moderation is so important. With salt, with seasoning, with sugar, I don’t want it to be too much of a good thing. This is so important. I also talked about it in my episode that I did about heavy metals and baby food. We want to give them a variety of different foods because it’s important that we are not giving them all salt, all sugar, all of one thing because that’s not good for them. And we want them to explore different things. Number two, a child’s food preference is built in those first two years of life. This is why I am very passionate about food introduction at six months of age, why I’m so big on introducing variety to kids because their palate is developing in those first two years. You really want to expose them to a variety of different seasoning salt, sugar, whatever it is, but I want you to incorporate a variety of cultural foods too. If you yourself are not into those cultural foods, that’s fine, but try to expand their palate in different seasonings that you may not normally eat for your family. And you’ll be surprised you may like it too. You do not need to do spicy food because obviously, not everyone can tolerate that. But you really want them to start experiencing the different flavors that different cuisines have to offer. The last thing is don’t beat yourself up too much. There are so many rules. I know the AAP has these rules. Other people, other friends may have rules that are different than yours. I want you to come up with a rule that works for your family understanding that we want to balance and reduce salt intake, reduce sugar intake and diversify, I don’t need you to sit there with a calculator. I just want you to make a rule that works for your family similar to the screentime episode that I talked about. Make sure you understand the impacts that a high sugar diet can have. Make sure you understand the impact that only getting salty foods can have, but when you’re diversifying their foods, you’re not going to be doing too much of one thing.