The first rule is that thou shalt not feel guilt - especially about that which thou dost not know!!!!

I am sure there are folk who think it's fine and you'll hear the old: "you had it as a kid and it did you know harm..."

It's just something that is advised due to a) the high salt content of ham and manufactured meat b) the high nitrite content which is pretty icky c) meats like devon are highly processed and highly processed foods (manufactured ham like soccerball etc also fall into this category) are best avoided by all of us but especially developing babies.

I find that I offer a platter to my kids and my baby - carrot sticks and hommus are a big hit - I make my own hommus & it's easy and yummy, yoghurt, capsicum sticks, celery sticks, a range of chopped fruits, I offer gluten free bread and they dip that into the hommus, sometimes they have home made fish sticks (I make a big batch and crumb them with stale gluten free bread and freeze them - are really quick to bake in the oven), I bake fruit muffins and freeze then individually (you know the mini muffin pans I use them) my kids are gluten free so I just use gluten free bread and I use apple puree instead of sugar or rapadura it's yummy! Sometimes they just have avocado on toast & that is yummy too with some fruit after...

There are lots of choices beside the really manufactured ones -- though sometimes it seems hard to think of them I know...