National Sandwich Week
Who doesn’t love a sandwich!? Theresa from Happy Tums went to visit Sandwich in Kent recently to see where the origin of the sandwich began and it really is an interesting place to visit and learn all about the history surrounding this humble food.
Traditionally, a sandwich started as a piece of meat tucked between two pieces of bread. Today however a sandwich is so much more! We have so many breads now available on the market, serving as a vehicle to hold together so many delicious fillings. Everything from a French baguette to a tortilla wrap, a sourdough to a naan, the sandwich appears just about everywhere you go.
But, if we are looking at sandwiches when weaning, what do we need to know? We know babies shouldn’t have more than 1g of salt a day and so we really need to consider the salt content of any sandwich we are making. To do this, there are three main things to think about and they are:
- The salt content of the bread used to make a sandwich
- The butter used in the sandwich
- The filling used in the sandwich
Salt Content of Bread
We need salt to make bread as it has a role in tightening the gluten which gives bread it’s structure. If you do have a bread maker machine, it is possible to make your own salt free bread, however you should bear in mind that the gluten will be much softer and the bread may collapse.
It is worth looking at the salt content of a variety of breads available in the UK. Below is a table showing the salt contents of common breads which we see in UK shops and supermarkets today.
| Type of Bread | Salt content per slice / portion | Salt content per 100g |
| Hovis soft white sliced | 0.36g per slice | 0.90g |
| Warburtons soft white sliced | 0.23g per slice | 0.98g |
| Hovis wholemeal bread sliced | 0.36g per slice | 0.90g |
| Warburtons wholemeal bread sliced | 0.43g per slice | 0.95g |
| Warburtons seeded batch loaf | 0.44g per slice | 0.95g |
| Kingsmill 50/50 bread | 0.4g | 0.98g |
| Mission Deli plain wrap | 0.93g per wrap | 1.53g |
| Mission Deli seeded wrap | 0.5g per wrap | 0.90g |
| Plain small baguette | 0.9g per half a baguette | 0.9g |
| Pataks plain chapattis | 0.57g per chapattis | 0.95g |
| Warburtons white bread rolls | 0.55g per roll | 0.98g |
| Warburtons wholemeal rolls | 0.55g per roll | 0.98g |
| New York plain bagel | 0.7g per bagel | 0.8g |
| Sharwoods plain mini naan bread | 0.46g per naan | 0.71g |
| Warburtons malted grain sourdough | 0.53g per slice | 0.89g |
