How much sodium is a 'high' amount?

[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.

[Lolli]

Thnaks MantaRay

[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?

[Moi]

I'm on a low salt diet due to illness, which as Ezz has said is 120mg or less per 100g, so I constantly have to read labels and I try to eat as much fresh food as possible. With foods being over processed now we have too much salt in our diets. Even things like bread are high in salt but there aren't really any low salt alternative breads. As for cheese I buy Nimbin which has the lowest salt I could find (300 mg per 100g). With peanut butter there are some no added salt varieties. I try to buy foods with 120mg or less per 100g but if none is available I buy the product with the smallest amount possible. HTH

[Lolli]

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?

Thanks for that Ezz Ds used to eat cheese off the block, before a month or so ago when he got fussy, but has never eaten it grated. I went and bought some of the pre sliced Coon stuff- I have an inkling he will be more inclined to eat that then straight off the block (why would he want to eat it when Mummy had something to do with the preparation??). Going to give it a run this morning.

[Jennifer13]

Choice have a list of heaps of processed foods they've studied and they rank them in order of low, medium and high. We use their guidelines for DP as well, who has high blood pressure and is *supposed* to be following a low sodium diet. Go to CHOICE Food for Kids Australia and browse some of their info for foods that take this and other factors, like fat, into account.

We go by 120mg or less sodium per 100g as being 'low', 120-240mg as 'medium' and anything above this as 'high'.