Learn about the seven types of foods toddlers should not eat.

Do you ever wonder if there are foods you should avoid feeding your toddler? I’m reviewing seven types of foods that toddlers should avoid. Why? Because these foods are dangerous. They may cause choking, food poisoning, or contribute to unhealthy food preferences.

Let’s dig into the information you need to make smart food choices as you feed your toddler a balanced diet.

Dangerous Food for Toddlers (& Why Toddlers Should Avoid Them)

There are three main reasons for avoiding certain foods when you have a toddler. They include: choking, food poisoning, and the potential for developing unhealthy food preferences.

• Choking is the leading cause of injury and early death in children. It’s totally preventable. 
• Exposure to harmful bacteria from food or drinks can cause diarrhea and dehydration in the toddler. This is completely preventable, too.
• Some foods aren’t great for your toddler’s health. When your toddler is exposed to a variety of healthy foods, they’re more apt to develop preferences for them, eat better, and meet their nutritional needs and overall health. However, when nutrient-poor foods are frequently part of your toddler’s eating pattern, it can undermine your toddler’s health.

The best news about all of this is that choking, food poisoning, and unhealthy eating habits are easier to side step when you have nutrition knowledge.

7 Types of Foods Toddlers Should Not Eat

Here are seven different types of foods that your toddler should not be eating.

1. Sweet Foods and Sugary Drinks

Pediatricians and pediatric dietitians like myself recommend no added sugar for children under the age of two. Why? Toddlers have tiny tummies and they don’t have a lot of extra room for foods that don’t contribute to their growth and nutritional status, like added sugar.

Added sugar increases calories, may replace nutrients, and makes food taste sweeter. 

Sugary foods and beverages to avoid:

• Candy, cookies, cakes, ice cream 
• Soft drinks 
• Granola bars, sweetened cereals, breakfast pastries
• Flavored dairy products like sweetened yogurt and chocolate milk

The goal is to be careful about the presence of added sugar in the foods you give to your toddler. Allowing candy, cookies, or another sweet treat will crowd out the essential and critical nutrients your toddler needs to grow and develop well.

It’s not about restricting or controlling sugar, but about ensuring your toddler has a nutrient-rich diet to support their optimal growth and development.

If your toddler consumes 100% fruit juice, the recommendation is to limit this to four ounces, or half a cup, per day.

2. Salty Food

The second type of food your toddler should avoid eating is salty food. Adding salt to food, such as sprinkling table salt or soy sauce on food adds sodium. Young children should limit their sodium consumption to less than 1,200 mg per day for 1 to 3 year olds and a maximum of 1,500 mg per day for childred aged 4 to 8 years. (You can find the amount of sodium in a product by looking at the food labels.)

Other potentially salty foods include: 

• Canned vegetables, canned soups, potato chips, crackers, and ready-to-eat meals (boxed mac and cheese or frozen dinners, for example). 
• Processed meats like lunch meat, hot dogs, salamis, other salty meats, or some brands of chicken nuggets can be a source of too much salt for your toddler and should be avoided.

Hot tip: Lower the sodium in canned vegetables or beans by simply rinsing them under water. It cuts sodium by 40%!

3. Hard Foods and Round Foods

Hard or round foods can be a choking hazard for toddlers. Hold off on these until your toddler is very proficient at chewing, swallowing, and managing food inside their mouths.

Some examples of hard or round foods are: 

• Hard candies, jelly beans, and gummy candies
• Raw vegetables or fruits such as raw carrots, corn, or apples 
• Whole grapes, cherries, berries, or cherry tomatoes that aren’t cut up
• Whole nuts like peanuts or cashews. You can chop these up to a finer consistency, and they’ll be much more manageable. 
• String cheese can be a choking hazard. They’re marketed as stringy cheese, so tear them into strings so you reduce the risk of choking. This goes for large chunks of cheese also. 
• Tortilla chips or corn chips. These chips are large, hard and have sharp edges. 
• Popcorn is a choking hazard for young toddlers.

4. Squishy Foods

Squishy foods can be really hard for your toddler to manage in their mouth without choking. 

• Gum or marshmallows 
• Nut butters like peanut butter is squishy and sticky, making it challenging to maneuver in little mouths. Nut butter is okay when lightly spread on a cracker or bread, but avoid a spoonful of it.

5. Caffeine-Containing Foods

Caffeine is ubiquitous in our food environment like soda, coffee, and chocolate. You can find caffeine in lots of places. Caffeine is a stimulant and most toddlers I know do not need additional stimulation! Even a little sip of soda, a sip of a latte, or small amounts of energy drinks are going to give your toddler a shot of caffeine. Remember, their bodies are so much smaller than yours – so a little bit goes a long way.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends that young children get no caffeine. So watch out for caffeine-containing foods.

If you want to learn more about caffeine, read: How Much Caffeine is Too Much for a Child?

Or watch this video: ‘CAFFEINE AND KIDS – Can Kids Drink Coffee?‘ 

6. Mercury-Containing Foods

Mercury interferes with brain development. Mostly, mercury is found in fish, so you want to be careful about the types of fish you offer to your toddler.

Of course, we want toddlers to eat fish because it’s an important source of DHA and EPA, both omega-3 fatty acids that help with your toddler’s brain development. 

But certain types of fish have higher levels of mercury:

• King mackerel, tilefish, swordfish, and orange roughy

Canned light tuna, salmon, shrimp, are cod fish are low-mercury fish. These offer those important omega-3 nutrients to your toddler without the high levels of mercury. Learn more about which fish to avoid, and which types of fish are good for your toddler to eat in my article: 5 Tips to Help Kids Eat More Fish 

Get your guide to help your toddler eat:

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7. Raw Foods

Foods like raw milk, raw yogurts, and raw cheeses have not been pasteurized. Pasteurization is a process of heating milk to a temperature that will kill harmful bacteria. When milk is raw, or unpasteurized, it may contain levels of bacteria that may cause food poisoning, such as E. Coli, Campylobacter, and Salmonella. This can be dangerous for your toddler. 

As a clinical dietitian, I unfortunately saw a few children with severe food poisoning as a result of eating raw foods or undercooked food.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), young children should not consume unpasteurized milk or any food made with raw milk like soft cheeses, yogurt, and ice cream. 

If you’re offering these foods to your toddler, make sure they are made with pasteurized milk.

Other raw foods to avoid for the toddlers:

• Raw fish found in sushi  
• Raw honey (especially for children under age two) may also contain live bacteria and cause infant botulism
• Raw eggs 

Generally, young children don’t fully develop their immune system until around age five. Therefore, they are less able to battle the bacteria that might be transmitted to them through these undercooked or unpasteurized foods. If you want to start introducing sushi to your toddler, choose options with vegetables, avocado, cooked egg, or cooked fish or shrimp.

Resources

• My YouTube channel (lots of videos on toddler nutrition)
• My book, Try New Food: How to Help Picky Eaters Taste, Eat & Enjoy New Foods
• The Nourished Child Blueprint: Get started with feeding your toddler right! This is my flagship course that will help you learn how to feed your toddler a nutritious diet in positive ways so their relationship with food is a healthy one!