What's the big deal?
Imagine drinking a mouthful of seawater… not very nice! But some foods like soups, bacon, sausages and some cereals are just as salty! One cup of instant soup can have the same amount of salt as two cups of seawater.
Salt isn’t all bad—we do need it to survive. But the amounts we need to keep us healthy are tiny compared to what we normally eat. Adults should eat no more than 6g salt (or 2.4g sodium) a day. But research shows that most of us actually eat around 9g salt or more each day.
The problem with salt is that eating too much of it can raise your blood pressure. This is true for adults, children and even babies. And if you have high blood pressure, then you are three times more likely to develop heart disease or have a stroke.
Six weeks to change your tastebuds!
Getting the whole family to cut down on salt isn’t as hard as you might think. It only takes a few weeks for your taste buds to get used to having less salt. When you start reducing your salt intake food may seem a little bland at first. But after about 6 weeks you won’t even notice the difference. So make small changes to the way you eat – and make a big difference to your health!
Week 1
Try using freshly ground pepper instead of salt.
Week 2
Choose fresh meat, fish, fruit and vegetables over processed foods whenever possible.
Week 3
Choose foods which have been flavoured with herbs and spices. They add lots of flavour to food so you shouldn’t need to add any salt.
Week 4
Cut down on the amount of salty meats you choose such as bacon, gammon and ham.
Week 5
Always taste your food first before you add salt – food often contains more than enough salt.
Week 6
Sauces and dressings often contain lots of salt so ask for them to be served on the side, then you can control how much you wish to use.
Even if you stopped adding salt to your food at the table, you could still be eating far too much of it each day. Find out more about which foods are high and low in salt.
Click here for more tips about how to cut down on the salt in your diet - at home, when shopping, and when you're eating out.
Calculate how much salt you eat
Our salt calculator can help you find out how much salt is in your food using nutrition labels on products.
How to use the salt calculator
- Look at the nutrition label and find the amount of sodium in 100g.
- Work out how much of the food you are going to eat and then enter that amount (in grams).
- Click on the “calculate” button to see how much salt is in the serving and what percentage this is of your daily recommended allowance.
