Salt in the Diet

Why is salt important?

Salt (also called sodium chloride, or NaCl) contains sodium. Sodium, along with potassium, is very important in helping your body maintain normal cell function and a proper fluid balance. Sodium allows your body to take in fresh fluids, eliminate fluid waste through your urine, and still stay in fluid balance. Fluid balance is important for many body functions, including maintaining blood pressure, avoiding dehydration, and keeping the kidneys healthy. Too little sodium in the blood can keep brain, heart, and muscle cells from working properly.

Too much salt can lead to too much sodium in the blood, causing health problems. It can cause you to retain water, resulting in uncomfortable swelling of the hands, feet, and sometimes abdomen. Some women are more salt-sensitive before their periods. They are more likely to gain weight and have swelling and bloating from salt at this time.

A serious problem related to too much salt in your diet is high blood pressure. High blood pressure increases your risk for heart disease and strokes. Approximately one third of people with high blood pressure in the United States are especially salt sensitive. This means that if they eat too much salt, it will cause or worsen high blood pressure.

What is the recommended amount of salt?

Your body needs only about 500 milligrams (mg) of sodium (about one-quarter of a teaspoon of salt) each day. The 2005 Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that you eat no more than 2300 mg of sodium each day. (One teaspoon of table salt contains about this amount.) If you have high blood pressure, the recommendation is to reduce the amount of sodium in your diet to 1500 mg each day or less. The average American adult eats quite a bit more sodium than this--often between 4000 and 9000 mg of sodium daily.

How do I decrease the salt in my diet?

You can take several steps to decrease the salt in your diet:

• Stop adding salt to food at the table. One third to one half of the sodium people eat is added at the table or during cooking. Try flavoring your food with other spices or salt substitutes that do not contain sodium.
• Use little or no salt during food preparation and cooking. Use other spices instead of salt.
• Read the labels on all canned, packaged, or frozen foods to see how much sodium they contain. Many soups, frozen dinners, lunch meats, and other convenience foods contain high levels of sodium. Be aware that food labels list sodium rather than salt content and the amount is always given in milligrams (mg) rather than grams (g). 2,300 mg is the same as 2.3 grams of sodium. Foods that have less than 140 mg per serving are considered to be low in salt.
• Check the sodium content in snack foods, especially the ones that taste salty but even those that aren't obviously salty.
• Don't use a lot of sauces and condiments on foods.

What are examples of sodium content in common foods?

Fresh, whole foods have very little sodium. Most of the sodium we eat is added during processing and food preparation. The list below gives a sample of the sodium content in different groups of foods.

 
Food                            Serving Size  Sodium Content 
                                                    (mg)
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Grains and grain products 

Cooked cereal, rice, or 
  pasta, unsalted                   1/2 cup        0 to 5
Ready-to-eat cereal                 1 cup        100 to 360
Bread                               1 slice      110 to 175

Vegetables
Fresh or frozen, cooked 
  without salt                      1/2 cup        1 to 70
Canned or frozen with sauce         1/2 cup      140 to 460
Tomato juice, canned                3/4 cup      820

Fruit
Fresh, frozen, canned               1/2 cup        0 to 5

Low-fat or fat-free dairy foods 
Milk                                1 cup        120
Yogurt                              8 oz         160
Natural cheeses                1 and 1/2 oz      110 to 450
Processed cheeses              1 and 1/2 oz      600

Nuts, Seeds and dry beans
Peanuts, salted                     1/3 cup      120
Peanuts, unsalted                   1/3 cup        0 to 5
Beans, cooked from dried or 
  frozen without salt               1/2 cup        0 to 5
Beans, canned                       1/2 cup      400

Meats, fish and poultry
Fresh meat, fish, poultry             3 oz        30 to 90
Tuna canned, water pack, no 
  salt added                          3 oz        35 to 45
Tuna canned, water pack               3 oz       250 to 350
Ham, lean, roasted                    3 oz      1020
Egg                               1 egg, raw      60 to 80

Fast foods, condiments, and sauces
Burger King Whopper               1 sandwich    1020
Burger King French fries          medium large   640 to 880
Catsup                            1 tablespoon   200
Mustard                           1 teaspoon      80 
Soy sauce                         1 tablespoon   914
Table salt                        1 teaspoon    2326
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Decreasing sodium is one of the easier changes you can make in your diet. Once you start a low-sodium diet, you will gradually become more sensitive to the taste of salt in foods. For most people, this takes about 30 days, so it is important to stick with it. You will begin to enjoy lower salt, less processed food choices, and you will find that foods such as canned soups and packaged meats taste too salty. Use natural spices like oregano and rosemary to add flavor, but beware of seasonings with hidden sodium, such as Cajun seasoning and blackening spices.

If you are taking medicine or have any medical conditions, be sure to check with your healthcare provider before changing your diet.

If you would like to have a more complete list of the sodium content of common American foods, visit the USDA National Nutrient Database at http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/Data/SR19/nutrlist/sr19a307.pdf.

See also: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/hbp/prevent/sodium/sodium.htm for a guide to reducing the salt and sodium in your diet.