Being Healthy Should Be Easy
It is common knowledge that too much salt is bad for us. It puts at increasing risk of ‘heart disease and stroke‘. Linkages have also been made between salt consumption and ‘Stomach Cancer and Water retention/bloating‘
The NHS (National Health Service) recommended dose is just 6g a day. However, compliance with this could be harder than you think. Here is some foods I commonly eat and below is what they contain. I have sourced the information from the back of the packet, apart from the items where I have included the source.
1 tblspoon of Soy Sauce = 0.9g
1 slice of thick bread = 0.5g (Source: Here)
1 Oxo Cube = 1.7g-2g (Source: Here)
1 Packet Fajita Spice Mix = 7g
Lizzi Granola = 0.17g per serving
1 tblspoon Heinz Ketchup = .4g (Source: Here)
In summary, with the exception of the Granola, I am eating a lot of salt and that is before I add a grind of salt to my food!
Sodium or Salt?
What adds to the confusion when it comes to compliance is that some foods list their Sodium Content whereas some list Salt content. Normal Table Salt contains 40% sodium (Source: Here). Thus 1g of Salt contains 0.4g Sodium. So if you have the sodium content you need to multiply it as follows:
Sodium x 10/4= Salt
Based on the NHS guidelines we can therefore consume 2.4g of Sodium.
Is Salt all bad?
No, it is accepted that salt in low doses are essential to the operation of the body. Those in manual jobs (in particular where one works in a hot environment) may need higher salt doses than the average person.
Others believe it is ‘table salt’ that is the problem rather than salt from natural sources, which is packed full of minerals and tends to be lower in sodium. This article from The Independent newspaper is interesting reading.