Will babies lose strength if they don't eat salt? Will babies lose strength if they don't eat salt?

I believe many parents have heard the parenting ideas of the older generation, that babies will not grow fast and will not have energy if they do not add salt to their food. Is this true? Today, let's talk about whether the traditional Chinese parenting saying that babies will not have energy if they do not eat salt makes sense.

How to choose rice flour as complementary food

1How to mix rice flour and water

There is no accurate mixing ratio for baby rice cereal and water. Parents can make the most appropriate ratio according to the different situations of each baby. When the baby eats rice cereal for the first time, since he has been drinking liquid milk before, parents can make the rice cereal thinner, and then slowly thicken it after the baby adapts.

Scientific research shows that the most suitable water temperature for preparing rice cereal for babies is 70℃-80℃. Because too low water temperature will make rice cereal difficult to dissolve, it will form lumps of different sizes, making it difficult for babies to swallow, the taste will deteriorate, and it is not conducive to digestion; too high water temperature will lead to the loss of water-soluble nutrients in rice cereal, so parents who like to prepare rice cereal and then cook it should change the preparation method.

2. How to feed rice flour

When a 4-month-old baby eats rice cereal for the first time, he or she may not be able to use a spoon. Parents can make the rice cereal thinner and feed it with a bottle. After the baby gets used to the taste of the rice cereal, use a special baby bowl and spoon to feed the baby. First put the rice cereal in a bowl, then add an appropriate amount of hot water according to the baby's needs, and stir in one direction until it becomes a paste.

In addition to hot water, rice noodles can also be prepared with breast milk or formula milk water, or fruit juice. The method of preparation is to moisten the rice noodles with a small amount of hot water, then add breast milk or squeezed fruit juice, stir well and then eat.

Baby eats too much salt

Zinc deficiency can cause high blood pressure

High-salt foods can reduce oral saliva secretion and lysozyme, which allows various bacteria and viruses to exist in the upper respiratory tract. It can inhibit the reproduction of oral mucosal epithelial cells, causing them to lose their disease resistance. Due to the penetration of salt, it can kill the normal parasitic flora in the upper respiratory tract, causing flora imbalance and leading to illness.

A high-salt diet will affect the absorption of zinc in children and lead to zinc deficiency. A high-salt diet will increase the burden on the baby's heart and kidneys. Babies are underdeveloped and cannot absorb too much salt. If too much salt is added to complementary foods, it will increase the burden on the baby's kidneys and heart, causing damage to organ function.

If you develop a high-salt eating habit from a young age, it will be difficult to correct it when you grow up, and a high-salt eating habit can easily cause diseases such as high blood pressure.

Infants aged 0 to 1 year

According to the "Dietary Guidelines for Chinese Residents", infants under one year old do not need to eat additional salt.

Babies have a more sensitive sense of taste than adults, so we cannot use adults’ taste to judge children’s taste. Babies can also enjoy food that adults find tasteless. Moreover, babies’ taste habits are still developing and they are more sensitive to the stimulation of seasonings. Adding salt can easily cause babies to reject tasteless original food.

Children aged 1 to 3 years

Children aged 1 to 3 years old need 700 mg of sodium (equivalent to 1.8 g of salt) every day, which is 350 mg more than infants aged 6 to 12 months. However, under normal circumstances, it is also possible to get enough sodium from food, such as milk, staple food, meat, green leafy vegetables, and fruits.

Why babies don't need extra salt

Whether it is breastfeeding, mixed feeding or bottle feeding, babies are generally not given extra salt (NaCl) before they start to eat complementary foods. But after adding complementary foods, many parents begin to wonder whether they should give their babies salt. Especially for children taken care of by the elderly, it is easy for them to eat complementary foods containing salt, including soups, at an early age. In fact, babies under 1 year old do not eat foods containing salt. Because milk and other complementary foods contain sodium needed by the human body, for babies who eat normally, they can fully meet the baby's physiological needs for sodium.

On the contrary, it is well known that the high incidence of hypertension among adult residents in my country is related to high salt intake. If you want to control and reduce the salt intake in adulthood, you need to start from the baby. Do not eat salt in infancy, and try to eat a light diet in childhood. Only in this way can you better control the salt intake in adulthood. This requires that the baby's complementary food should maintain its original flavor. As long as the baby keeps eating original food during infancy, the baby can accept it. The saying that "no salt has no taste" is unfounded. In fact, do not add other seasonings to the baby's complementary food. The baby's taste buds are in the process of development and are more sensitive to the stimulation of seasonings. This is one of the reasons why many babies are not easy to accept original foods after eating foods containing salt and sugar.