Should salt be added to complementary foods for 6 months?

When the baby is 6 months old, he can start eating complementary foods. At this time, mothers always want to find ways to make their babies eat delicious and nutritious food. So should salt be added to complementary foods? Can salt be added? At what age can the baby eat salt? Mothers should pay attention.

Should salt be added to 6-month-old baby food?

Children's health has always advocated a "low-salt diet" for children, but there is no clear regulation on the amount of salt children should consume. The Chinese Nutrition Society recommends 200 mg of sodium for infants under 6 months old, which is only 0.5 grams of salt when fully converted. Other ingredients in food also contain a certain amount of sodium. Therefore, there is no need to add salt to complementary foods for babies under 6 months old.

Principles of complementary food addition

From little to more: the amount added increases gradually from little to more, from thin to thick, from light to heavy.

Gradual approach: Increase the amount gradually, try one first, and then add another one when the baby can digest and absorb it normally and has no allergic reaction.

Close observation: After adding new complementary food each time, closely observe the baby's digestion. If you find abnormal stool or other conditions, stop feeding this complementary food.

Be flexible: Children vary greatly from one individual to another, so it is advisable to be flexible in the type and quantity of supplementary food, as well as the starting age. When the baby is sick, the weather is too hot, or the baby has indigestion, you should delay adding new supplementary food to avoid indigestion.

These complementary foods are best not to be given to babies

1. Too sweet drinks and juices

Hazard level: ★☆☆

In the past summer, mothers liked to give their babies some cool and sweet drinks to relieve the heat of the summer heat. However, for babies who have just transitioned from breast milk to complementary foods, eating too much sugar will have many adverse side effects, such as inducing diabetes and promoting the occurrence of sawtooth.

Although various sweet drinks or fruit juices are rich in vitamins, they are also high in natural fructose. Drinking too much of these drinks will increase blood sugar, reduce the baby's hunger, and then cause anorexia, gastrointestinal discomfort, and even diarrhea. In addition, sugar is an acidic food without calcium. If too much sugar food is absorbed, the body fluid will be neutral or weakly acidic. In order to restore the normal weak alkalinity of the body, it is necessary to consume the alkaline substance in the body - calcium, which seriously affects the baby's bone development.

Editor's reminder: It is understandable for babies to drink some beverages, but most beverages on the market now contain too much sugar. If you are worried that drinking orange juice with sugar will be bad for your baby's health, it is best to make your own sugary drinks for your baby at home. You can control the sourness and sweetness yourself.

2. Egg white

Hazard level: ★☆☆

To supplement the baby's nutrition, many mothers first think of eggs, which have the highest nutritional value and are cheap. Especially in rural areas, people like to add eggs laid by their own hens to rice paste, but smart mothers will pick out the egg yolks to add to the baby's complementary food and slowly skim off the egg whites.

Babies under six months old have an incompletely developed digestive system and a high permeability of the intestinal wall. It is not appropriate to feed them egg whites at this time. The protein molecules in egg whites are small and can sometimes pass through the intestinal wall directly into the baby's blood, causing the baby's body to have an allergic reaction to foreign protein molecules, leading to eczema, urticaria and other diseases. Therefore, babies under six months old should not be fed egg whites and should only eat egg yolks. In addition, if fresh eggs are stored for too long, the quality will also change. If mothers observe that there are eggs with crusts, loose yolks, or moldy eggs, it is best to throw them away and not feed them to babies.

The editor reminds you: For loose yolk eggs caused by rupture of the yolk membrane due to severe vibrations during transportation and sales, mothers can smell them closely with their noses. If there is no peculiar smell, they can be fed to the baby, but they cannot be stored.

3. Too salty rice paste

Hazard level: ★☆☆

Some mothers are afraid that their babies will not eat rice cereal because it is too bland, so they add salt to their babies' food. However, a US medical organization found that when babies eat too much canned food, 11% of them suffer from high blood pressure when they are 10-13 years old. This data may seem a bit scary, but mothers should not underestimate it.

It is true that salt is one of the essential substances for the growth and development of babies, and it is also a common seasoning in complementary foods. Adding some salt to complementary foods can make the taste delicious and promote the baby's appetite. As we all know, salt mainly contains sodium ions, but because the baby's kidneys are not yet mature and have weak sodium excretion ability, they cannot concentrate urine like adults and excrete a large amount of solutes. If the food you eat is too salty, it will increase the salt content in the blood, increase the burden on the kidneys, and cause dehydration.

In addition, if babies eat salty food for a long time, the sodium ions in their bodies will increase, which will cause heart and muscle weakness. Not to mention babies, adults who eat too much salt may also suffer from high blood pressure, arteriosclerosis and other diseases. In addition, too salty food makes people feel thirsty, and the same is true for babies. Too much salt will reduce the baby's saliva secretion and the lysozyme in the mouth, and viruses may breed in the mouth. The baby's chance of getting sick will increase.

The editor reminds you: Canned food is not suitable for baby food because it contains a lot of salt. Even if your family likes strong-flavored food, you should make light-flavored complementary food for your baby. Before feeding your baby, you can feel the saltiness of the taste yourself first.

How to make complementary food

1. Pork liver porridge

Appropriate age for babies: Babies over 8 months old should not eat too much, and the liver must be washed thoroughly.

practice

1. The pork liver can be cooked in advance, and the parts without tendons can be chopped for later use;

2. Boil the porridge in a pot first, then pour the pork liver in and continue cooking for half an hour;

3. Grind into paste and add appropriate amount of rice soup. The thickness can be controlled according to the baby's condition.

4. You can add an appropriate amount of milk powder when making it.

2. Carrot porridge

Appropriate age babies: Babies over 6 months old can start eating it. Add a small amount of carrots at the beginning, and then add more gradually after the baby gets used to it.

practice

1. Wash and cut carrots into pieces, set aside;

2. Cook the porridge in the rice cooker first. After half an hour, add the carrots and cook until the carrots are soft (the time should not be too long);

3. Put the cooked carrot porridge into a grinding bowl and grind it, or you can use a food processor;

4. After grinding, filter it with a filter. Continue to stir and break it during the process. The finished product should be as smooth as rice noodles (you can add an appropriate amount of rice soup, but not too much or too thick for the first time).

3. Pumpkin porridge

Appropriate age for babies: Babies over 6 months old should not eat too much, just one meal a day is enough. You can also cook pumpkin porridge for your baby during the weaning period, which is the best complementary food for the weaning period!

practice

1. Steam the pumpkin on top while the porridge is cooking;

2. Add pumpkin to porridge;

3. You can also add some milk according to your baby’s taste.