For a child
A child usually wants the same dish, taken out earlier — not a different one. Tell us the ingredients and textures they refuse and the suggestions route around them, and we show you where to lift their portion out before the salt and the spice.
- Free sugars, for adults and children alike, below 10% of daily energy. 10% Context established
- There is no gram figure specific to a child: the adult limit is adjusted down by energy requirement. 5 g Context established
- No whole nuts before five years old — the reason is choking, not allergy. 5 years Context established
- We print no number for how many times a child must try something; we do not have one.
The 1 rules we hold for this group
These are not advice written on a page: they are the rules the engine runs on every recipe. With somebody from this group at your table, the same ones fire there too.
No whole nuts until five years old, and anything round and firm carries the same risk: a whole grape, a slice of sausage, raw carrot, a whole olive. The problem is the shape rather than the ingredient — quarter grapes lengthways, cut sausage along its length, grind the nuts. Ground nuts and nut butter are fine from around six months.
NHS, Foods to avoid giving babies and young children
Thresholds that hold whatever gets cooked
Salt in a day
No separate figure is given for a child: the adult value is adjusted downward by the child’s energy requirement. So for a small child the limit is well below 5 g and moves with age — printing one number would invent a precision the source does not offer. Under one year, and 6-24 months, fall outside this recommendation altogether; added salt is not on the table at that age in any case.
World Health Organization, Salt reduction
Free sugars
The same share for adults and for children. Ten per cent of a 2000-calorie day is roughly 50 g of sugar, and a single can of a fizzy drink is more than half of it. The risk of weight gain, obesity and tooth decay rises above this line.
World Health Organization, Information note about intake of sugars recommended in the WHO guideline for adults and children, 2015
This one carries a different strength, and the difference is written down on purpose: 10% is a strong recommendation, 5% is conditional. That is WHO’s own distinction, and putting the two in one sentence would say the evidence behind them is equally strong.
World Health Organization, Information note about intake of sugars recommended in the WHO guideline for adults and children, 2015
Protein in a day
Per kilogram the need is higher in a child than an adult, because growth wants protein too. There is no single number: it runs between 0.83 and 1.31 g by age. Which age takes which figure is not written here, because writing it without reading the table would be inventing it.
European Food Safety Authority, Dietary Reference Values for protein, 2012
The infant feeding calendar
Whole nuts are not given below five years old — the reason is choking, not allergy. The same logic covers anything round and firm: quarter a grape lengthways, cut sausage along its length rather than across. The nut itself is not the problem; ground or as a butter it is fine from around six months. What changes is the shape, not the ingredient.
NHS, Foods to avoid giving babies and young children
Portion size, meal patterns, iron and vitamin D, and fussy eating itself are not on this site. The thresholds above are quoted in WHO’s own words. The primary Turkish reference is the Ministry of Health’s dietary guideline (TÜBER 2022).
Portion size, meal patterns, iron and vitamin D, fussy eating — none of that is here. The salt and sugar thresholds above are quoted in WHO's own words; not even WHO gives a gram figure specific to a child, only that the adult value is adjusted down by energy requirement, and that is what is written. The primary Turkish reference is the Ministry of Health's Türkiye Beslenme Rehberi (TÜBER) 2022.
Sources
- World Health Organization, Information note about intake of sugars recommended in the WHO guideline for adults and children, 2015
- World Health Organization, Salt reduction
- NHS, Foods to avoid giving babies and young children
- Republic of Türkiye Ministry of Health, General Directorate of Public Health, Türkiye Dietary Guidelines (TÜBER) 2022, 2022
Last read: 2026-09-13
Add them to your table and the rest follows.
Reading a page changes no suggestion; adding somebody to the table does. Allergens are set aside, the split point is worked out, the portions are counted.