Episode 4: Salt Secrets: The impact of salt on kids

Episode 4: Salt Secrets: The impact of salt on kids

Welcome to the Easy Feed Podcast, episode number four. Today, we're diving into a crucial topic: SALT. That four-letter word adds flavour to our meals but can pose a significant health risk, especially for our children. I'm a mum too, and like you, I understand the challenges of keeping salt intake in check, especially when it comes to pasta-loving kids.

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Highlights:

Introduction (00:00.718)
Salt in Children's Diet (00:28.206)
Salt and Sodium Consumption: A Global Concern (02:47.246)
High Salt Intake in Children (05:16.846)
Australian Toddler Snacks and Salt Intake (07:41.07)
Reducing Children's Salt Consumption (10:02.734)
Reducing Fast Foods: A Healthier Approach (12:24.142)
Salt and Sodium Regulation in the Future (14:53.678)

Show notes

READ TRANSCRIPT

Show Notes

In this episode, we'll explore the following key points:

The surprising sources of salt in your child's diet including everyday foods like bread, cereals, and cheese.

Startling statistics on how many children consume excess sodium and the long-term health risks involved.

The role of salt in our bodies and why it's essential in moderation.

Debunking myths about different types of salt and why iodised salt may be the better choice.

Practical tips to reduce your family's salt intake without sacrificing flavour, from label reading to creative use of herbs and spices.

Setting our children on a healthy path early in life is vital to prevent salt cravings that can lead to future health issues. Join me in this episode to discover actionable steps to reduce salt intake without your kids noticing.

To learn more about safeguarding your family's health, hit that subscribe button. And after you've enjoyed a few episodes, please take a moment to leave a review. Your feedback helps spread the word and empowers more mums like us to make informed choices for our children's well-being.

Gets your child to eat more nutritious foods and enjoy them!

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Introduction (00:00.462)
You're listening to the Easy Feed Podcast, episode number four.
Hi there, I'm Karina Savage and with over 20 years experience feeding children, including my own, I've learnt all the secrets that busy mums need to get their children eating better and actually enjoying healthy foods. So a huge welcome to the Easy Feed Podcast.
Salt in Children's Diet (00:28.206)
Welcome back everybody. Today we're going to be talking about salt. Yes, that four letter word that makes food taste so good that we can't get enough of it. But it's something that we really need to be mindful of because it's something that we really shouldn't be having too much in our day, including our children.
Salt is something that I am challenged with every time we have pasta because my kids love adding salt to their pasta. Nothing is better for them than fresh pasta with some extra virgin olive oil and a good sprinkle of salt. And I think they just like salt in general because it just makes food taste good. I think, you know, we all love it, right? Well, some people actually don't. I've got a family member that really does not like salt.
salty foods, but I think she's an anomaly. I think most people do like the taste enhancement of salt, but you really need to be aware of it because most of our children these days consume way too much salt. And this is backed up in our national nutrition survey. So we know that Australian children are consuming way more than their recommended daily intakes of salt or sodium, as we call it. And so.
You know, when I do nutritional analysis of children, of families that I've worked with, you know, and I put in a typical day for the child, the sodium is often a good 500 % or more of the child's daily recommended intake. So this is something that we really need to be paying attention to. Our most recent nutrition survey shows that at least one in three Australian toddlers, if not more, are consuming
excess sodium in their daily diet. And what was really interesting is that in this study, 60 % of the sodium was actually coming from daily foods such as breads and cereals and cheese. It wasn't coming from, you know, the crisps and the packaged snacks that we often associate salt with. Another study of Australian children aged three and a half years showed.
Salt and Sodium Consumption: A Global Concern (02:47.246)
that almost 90 % of them exceeded the daily limit for salt or sodium. And these results are similar with what we're seeing overseas. A Canadian study showed that 72 % of children aged four to eight years of age were consuming sodium at levels exceeding the upper limit recommended in Canada. So it's something that is a worldwide issue, but something that we definitely need to be paying attention to.
So if we go back to why we need salt, well, salt or sodium, salt is actually sodium chloride, chemically speaking. So sodium is an essential nutrient that is needed by the body. So it is actually essential for our body in relatively small amounts or in small amounts. So it is crucial for our nervous system to function properly and for our muscles to contract and relax. It's also important for maintaining the balance of our body fluids and
So this reason also plays an important role in regulating our blood pressure. The thing is too much sodium, so I'll call it sodium from here on, but it's really salt, same thing. Too much sodium means too much water can be pulled into our blood, which pushes up our blood pressure to higher levels than we want, which isn't good. So the question is, does it matter which salt we use or we consume?
Is it, is there a difference whether it's Himalayan rock salt or regular table salt? Well, really at the end of the day, it's still sodium chloride. It's still salt. And look, some, there's some school of thought that will say Himalayan rock salt is better for you because it contains extra minerals and whatnot. But really the amount of extra minerals is so small. It's not worth it in my mind. I mean, if it really makes a difference to the taste then perhaps it's worth it, but.
At the end of the day, we're trying to reduce our salt intake, not increase it. So there's another reason why I would tend to err towards iodized salt anyway, and I'll talk a bit, well, I can talk about that now. The reason that I would prefer to choose iodized salt rather than an anionized or like a Himalayan rock salt or a sea salt is because we are seeing more iodine deficiency these days and iodine deficient related.
High Salt Intake in Children (05:16.846)
thyroid issues. So for this reason, I do recommend using an iodized salt at home for cooking rather than just a basic rock salt or Himalayan salt. So we really want to be reducing our overall salt intake. And I would choose when you are using salt and iodized salt, just to make sure that we are topping up our iodine levels because they are at risk of being a bit low these days. So,
What are the consequences of too much salt or sodium in a child's day? Well, number one, a high salt intake over time does increase their risk of health related problems as an adult. So it does increase their risk of high blood pressure as an adult. And then as an adult increases their risk of stroke and heart disease. When we are feeding our children salty foods from an early age, like our toddlers and our kids,
They are developing these salty preferences, which stay with them. They carry these with them into adulthood. So when kids are having a lot of salt, a high salt intake, they start to develop salt cravings. This creates a vicious cycle. And then as adults, they're wanting salty foods. And then as adults, their blood pressure is higher and then their risk of cardiovascular disease stroke is higher. So, you know, it's a vicious cycle and we really could make changes.
early on in their lives to really stop or prevent that from happening. So really to reduce the risk of them having a high salt intake as adults. So we just need to be really mindful of that from a young age. And there's plenty that we can do to reduce their daily salt intake without them really even noticing. So what are some of the regular high salt foods that our children eat?
So salt is naturally in foods without us even adding it to the food. So high salt foods include cheese, some meats, especially processed meat, such as bacon and ham, which I'm not a fan of anyway, sausages, fast foods such as nuggets and chips, and we'll talk a bit more about them later, processed snacks such as potato chips and
Australian Toddler Snacks and Salt Intake (07:41.07)
Toddler snacks. Now I was actually interviewed about this on television a couple of months ago because Australian toddler snacks do not meet international recommendations for sodium and sugar, which is pretty disappointing. I have to say that our Australian food standards are lower than the international standards, which means that our Australian toddlers and children.
are eating foods that are higher in salt and sugar because our Australian government hasn't put those strict regulations on the food standards. So that's something that really needs to be looked at from a regulatory perspective. So that is not allowed. So that the sodium and the sugar content of our toddler snacks and our children's snacks in the supermarket shop aren't that high. We need them to be lower. We don't want our children to be having these
salty sugary preferences that are developed from such a young age. So there's my little rant there about processed snacks in the supermarket. Other high salt foods include salted nuts, bread. So bread is one of those foods that our children will consume multiple times daily and bread can have 350 milligrams of sodium per hundred grams.
Some breads can be up to 500 -500 -600mg of sodium per 100g. So we just need to be mindful of those foods that our children are consuming multiple times a day because that can really add up in terms of how much sodium they're consuming. Cereals are another source of sodium. And again, we can easily look at the sodium per 100g and choose the lower sodium options. And sauces. Sources is another...
high risk area where again, you can read the label and compare the sources. And again, I've got a label reading masterclass, we talk about a lot about label reading in my nourishing kids' membership. So you have the knowledge to then be able to go into the supermarket and make better choices for your family. So how do we lower salt intake? Well, I've got a few tips here up my sleeve. So number one, the obvious is don't add salt at the table.
Reducing Children's Salt Consumption (10:02.734)
And again, you probably get pushed back. I mean, at the moment, if your children are adding their own salt, then what I would do, you know, I guess it's a staged process, then I would actually move from them putting their own salt on their food to you having a bit of salt in the palm of your hand and then taking one pitch and then moving to preferably you doing it and moving to them. Hopefully after that, no salt
But you know, it's, it's tricky and it's a process, especially if they're already used to having salt on their food. So that's the first thing we try to reduce the presence of salt at the table and trying to reduce how much is added. Number two, label reading. So as I've said, look at the sodium per 100 grams, and that's a really quick and easy way to reduce the sodium content of
your cereals or your bread. So choosing the lower sodium option there per 100 grams, just compare the two options in the supermarket and go for the lower salt option. Number three, limit fast foods such as McDonald's, Hungry Jack's. I mean, I hate to name the chain, but you know, let's be honest, there is a lot of salt in these fast foods. Kentucky Fried Chicken is another one. So if we look at, for example, a Hungry Jack's regular chips,
It accounts for 35 % of the recommended daily salt intake for a child who is four to eight years old. So that's a Hungry Jack's regular chips accounts for over a third of the child's RDI for salt. A McDonald's small fries only contributes 14%. If we look at KFC nuggets, a serve of KFC nuggets contributes 50 % to a child's daily.
salt sodium RDI. Whereas the McDonald's nuggets only contribute 30%. And look that's still high enough given this is only a small part of their day and they're probably eating bread and they're probably eating crackers and you know other foods that are also going to contain salt. A McDonald's cheeseburger contributes 52 % of a child's daily intake of salt sodium. 52 % just one cheeseburger.
Reducing Fast Foods: A Healthier Approach (12:24.142
So reducing fast foods is not only going to make a huge difference to, you know, their general health because fast foods aren't just high in salt, they're high in processed sugars, they're high in bad fats, you know, there's a lot of reasons why you want to reduce fast foods, but certainly reducing fast foods is going to reduce their salt intake because these foods are laden with salt. And again, it's part of the reason why
kids and some adults love them because they taste good. They're salty, they're sugary, they're fatty. The food market, manufacturers have nailed it in terms of the combination of sugars and fats and salts to make it addictive and delicious. So yeah, we just need to be really mindful of that. So are the ways that we can lower salt intake? We can use herbs in cooking instead of salt. So using dried herbs, using fresh herbs, so
Herbs are a brilliant way of adding flavour instead of salt and spices are the same and I think we need to be more courageous as parents in using spices and herbs to improve or enhance the flavour of our food without using salt. Onion and garlic is another one. It can significantly improve the flavour profile of a dish without needing to add salt. So having a play with onion, garlic and
spices and herbs, dried and fresh, instead of using salt and give it a go and see how you go. The other thing is trying to choose salt reduced options. So say if you were buying a vegetable stock or a chicken stock, trying to buy, purchase the salt reduced options where possible. Even soy sauce, you can buy a salt reduced option. And even though it's still very high, it's significantly lower than it was. You'll also notice, well, I've noticed and I'm here to pass it on to you.
kids wheat beaks, for example, is similar in most of the nutritional components and it might even have a few extra added vitamins, but the sodium, I mean, it's pretty comparable to regular wheat beaks, but the sodium is significantly lower in the kids wheat beaks, which is why I say, well, yes, it's worth it if you're going to buy the kids wheat beaks and pay a bit more, it's worth it because it's significantly lower in salt and sodium. So you just be mindful of quick wins and quick swaps that you can make.
Salt and Sodium Regulation in the Future (14:53.678)
to daily foods that over the days and the weeks and the months will really make a difference. And in the background, consciously and subconsciously, you are somewhat reprogramming their taste buds to be happy and accepting of a lower salt diet, which is what we want. And look, hopefully in the future, we see reformulation of, you know, regular food products for
not only children, but also for adults such as bread and cheese and cereals so that they must reduce the sodium content. I would love to see strict and more stringent food regulations in place for those standard food products so that we all readjust our taste preferences and get used to less salty foods and especially our children from a young age. So wrapping things up now, there's our little one -on -one on salt or sodium.
why it's important in very small amounts in our day and why it's important that we are paying close attention to how much our children are eating because we want to set them up to be healthy for the future. Thanks for listening. If you like what you hear, please make sure you subscribe to this podcast and once you've listened to a few, if you really receive some value, please leave me a review so that it helps get this podcast out to more people. Bye for now.