How much sodium is a 'high' amount?

[Lolli]

Cheers for that Sami, I have been wondering that for a while now.

[MantaRay]

I have a little wallet card from the Parents' Jury - I'll have to check it for you. But from memory it's about half that of adults. So when shopping there are very few things that have acceptable sodium levels. I am pretty good at knowing which brands to buy for most of my regular products, so if you have anything in particular you want to know the lowest sodium brand for, let me know.

[Snowy Love]

I just buy whatever's got the lowest level. My palate has changed in the last year and a half - I find stuff really salty now if I don't buy low salt.

[Ezz]

Thanks for that idea about the Parent's Jury card MR - I have never heard of that site before. I just downloaded the card. They say that you should be looking for less than 120mg per 100g.

There was a discussion about this a while ago with regard to vegemite. Find it here.

The salt issue is something I am really concerned about.

Looking online I found info that outlined the RDI of sodium for infants and it is not much at all:
0-6 months = 120mg/day
7-12 months = 200mg/day
1-3 yrs = 300mg/day

with the tolerable upper limits recommended
0-12 months n/a
1-3 yrs = 800mg

n/a due to the fact that there have been no studies done on the high effects of sodium on babies (prob not an ethical study to do!)

If you check out the sodium levels on foods you notice how quickly we can get a baby to 200mg.... pretty bad really.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

What age children?

An adult's daily salt intake should not exceed 6g: in 6g of salt there's about 2.3g of sodium (Salt is 23 Na (sodium) and 37 Cl to make a 60 total; 23/60 is 38% and 38% of 6g is 2.3). 2.3g is 230mg.

A child, depends on the age. Under 2 it is 2g salt, so 0.75g (75mg) approx of sodium. As they get older it increases, but you shouldn't be hitting the target ideally. That's supposed to be the maximum.

HTH and hope you can now look at salt content and realise how much sodium is in that too. Because that's a good thing to know. 40% of salt is sodium is a good, safe rule to have (because you over-estimate your sodium a tiny amount that way).

For DS, he just doesn't have salt. I no longer cook with salt. I buy food without salt too, special "baby" food and biscuits. But I prefer to cook at home just so I'm sure.

[Lolli]

Oh wow I've just been peering into my cupboards and it's not looking good....

Vegiemite and peanut butter (not that ds is eating that yet) both have huge amounts of salt...

And all the cheese (two varities of processed and one block of Colby) is just full of sodium.

MantaRay- Is there a cheese that's a bit better?? Ds will only eat processed cheese, not block, and it's one of the very few foods he will eat at the moment, so i'm loathing the thougt of giving it up...

[MantaRay]

LR, Cheese is a tricky one actually. Luckily the boys eat tasty cheese which is better than processed, but still very high in salt. We use the cheese slices as they are easier, and the lowest in salt that I've found is Bega, followed closely by Coon. The low fat ones are higher in salt so we avoid those.

The boys love cheese but I try to limit it as it's a high salt food.

[Ezz]

MantaRay- Is there a cheese that's a bit better?? Ds will only eat processed cheese, not block, and it's one of the very few foods he will eat at the moment, so i'm loathing the thougt of giving it up...

Have you tried grated cheese? DS doesn't like sliced cheese off a block, but is happy to eat it grated. I buy the shredded stuff, so it's easy enough to put on sandwiches, on top of pasta etc. I know Coon makes Tasty shredded - I'm assuming Bega probably does too?