Reducing your Sodium/Salt intake – The Basics
Todd Donnelly, registered Nutritionist, raises these points about salt…
“Salt is made up of sodium and chloride. It's the sodium in salt that can raise blood pressure – which triples the risk of developing heart disease, or having a stroke at any age. Monosodium glutamate (a flavour enhancer) and sodium bicarbonate (a raising agent) both contain sodium too”.
“The good new is that when your blood pressure goes down, your risk of developing heart disease and/or having a stroke goes down too, regardless of your age”.
“The adult requirement for salt is 4g (equivalent to 1.6g of sodium) a day. However, experts say that we should not consume more than 6g (one teaspoon) of salt a day. Most people in the UK eat too much salt – men eat about 11g and women 8g day”.
“It’s worth checking to find out how much salt there is in the food you eat. However most food labels list how much sodium is in the product, but not many list ‘salt’. To work out how much salt there is, when only sodium is listed, multiply the sodium figure by 2.5 to give you the amount of ‘salt’ i.e. 1g of sodium per 100g is equivalent to 2.5g salt per 100g”.
“It’s been found that three-quarters (75%) of the salt we consume comes from processed food, such as breakfast cereals, soups, sauces, ready meals and biscuits”.
“Considering Atlantic seawater contains 1 gram of sodium per 100g (i.e. 2.5g of salt per 100g) – foods such as cornflakes, sausages and bacon can contain the same amount of sodium (and if you’ve ever tasted seawater you know how salty that is!)”
However, many food manufacturers are beginning to produce reduced salt versions of their food – especially cereals, breads and condiments – so take a few minutes to check the shelves at the supermarket to find the low salt products”.
“Also remember that if you have children to think of when choosing foods, the amount of salt they should consume is much less than for adults –the younger they are the less salt they should be eating”.
“Here are the recommended salt intakes required for children”.
1 to 3 years – 1.25 g salt a day (0.5g sodium)
4 to 6 years – 1.75g salt a day (0.7g sodium)
7 to 10 years - 3g salt a day (1.2g sodium)
11 years and over - 4g salt a day (1.6g sodium)
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