According to an Australian nutritionist, children are developing hypertension for the first time ever.
And recent research has backed these claims, with parents found to be grossly underestimating how much salt their children are consuming each day.
So to help parents reduce their children’s intake, Mandy Sacher, author of nutrition guide and cookbook Wholesome Child, spoke to FEMAIL about her very simple salt reducing tips.
‘We all think about sodium as being part of chips, pretzels and unhealthy food but it’s actually our children’s staples we need to look at,’ Mandy told Daily Mail Australia.
Mandy Sacher, author of Wholesome Child, (pictured centre) has shared how you can reduce your offspring’s salt intake without completely overhauling their diet
She explained that if your child is eating breakfast cereal, mid morning crackers, a sandwich for lunch, chips or pretzels for a snack and chicken in a honey mustard sauce for dinner then the salt really adds up.
‘Already they are having six to 7.5 grams of salt in that day. Our children really are having too much salt in their diet and it’s coming from every day staples, not just from chips and snack foods,’ Mandy explained.
‘It’s actually coming from things like their pasta sauce, meat marinade and tomato sauce.’
She said that Australian children are developing hypertension for the first time ever due to their salt intake
An increased salt intake leads to an array of health complications for young kids.
‘Studies have shown us that children with high blood pressure are more likely to carry that into adulthood and it predisposes them to cardiovascular disease, heart disease and risk of stroke,’ Mandy explained.
‘The other thing people don’t really talk about is that too much salt in the diet causes calcium to be lost in the bones, we call this bone demineralisation.
‘This is really important to know, especially for teenage girls and obviously this can lead to osteoporosis.’
Mandy said that parents need to think about how early childhood eating patterns are formed and how they often affect long term preferences.
‘Children that are brought up on high sodium diets, they typically crave these kinds of foods,’ Mandy said
‘Children that are brought up on high sodium diets, they typically crave these kinds of foods,’ Mandy said.
‘I have a lot of parents who see me who can’t get their children to eat homemade meals and one of the reasons is because their children are so used so processed meals which are really high in salt and sugar.
‘So when a child becomes addicted to these salty processed foods there is actually a salt addiction so when you go to give them homemade food they taste bland.’
‘Children that are brought up on high sodium diets, they typically crave these kinds of foods,’ she told Daily Mail Australia
Mandy will often see parents who say that their child will ‘only eat chicken nuggets’.
Her recommendation for this is to not cut out the foods that children love but simply make alterations.
‘Those chicken nuggets are high in salt and sodium so we want to transition them onto homemade foods,’ she said.
‘You can make homemade chicken nuggets and use healthier salts such as Himalayan rock salt or sea salt.
‘The children are still getting a bit of a salty taste but it is very unlikely that your homemade cooking is going to contain as much sodium as those processed chicken nuggets.’
Other meals Mandy suggests that parents make from scratch are homemade pizzas, meatballs, wedges and brownies.
Mandy will often see parents who say that their child will only eat chicken nuggets and her recommendation for this is to not cut out the foods that children love but make alterations
Although she knows cooking homemade meals every night isn’t possible for everyone, increasing the amount you cook really makes a difference
Although she knows cooking homemade meals every night isn’t possible for everyone, increasing the amount you cook really makes a difference.
To put things in perspective Mandy explained that a lot of children will have a cheese sandwich for their lunch.
She explained that one to three-year-olds only need 2.5 grams salt per day and children aged four to eight only require 3.5 grams of salt, but in one cheese sandwich you can get anywhere from two grams of salt to 3.7 grams.
‘Basically these children can hit their entire salt quota for the day in just one cheese sandwich and for me this is very problematic.’
This is where product knowledge comes into place and educating parents on how to read labels and how to determine what is a low sodium product.
‘If you choose wisely with a low sodium bread and low sodium cheese slice you’re looking at a gram or even under a gram of salt for that sandwich as opposed to another cheese sandwich which can have over 3.5 grams of sodium per serve.’
Many explained that cheese sandwiches can be one of the secret contributors to the high salt intake of children
Other culprits are tinned fish in brine as well as store bought pasta sauces – Mandy recommends buying tinned fish in water and making your own sauce
Mandy said that even a simple snack such as two minute noodles contains 2.8 grams of salt.
She went on to explain that one serving size of tomato sauce is a tablespoon, which contains just over 300 milligrams of sodium, but it is not often that someone will stop at that amount.
Instead of completely removing these kind of foods Mandy recommends shopping for alternatives such as ricotta and bocconcini instead of yellow cheese and low sodium soy sauce, soup and stock.
Mandy said that even a simple snack such as two minute noodles contains 2.8 grams of salt
If your children love tomato sauce she suggests you measure it up yourself before taking it to the table so that you are sticking to the tablespoon limit.
‘It’s not an all or nothing approach, if you’re kid is eating a high salt diet look at where it’s coming from and reduce it,’ she said.
‘If you’re eating take away three times away, reduce it two times and then to once. It’s about the small simple changes, don’t get caught up in changing everything at once.’