How much salt per day: sodium limits, hidden salt and how to cut back without losing flavour

Salt or sodium: they are not the same (and labels play on that)

Table salt is sodium chloride: roughly 40% of its weight is sodium and 60% is chloride. What matters for health is the sodium, but in the kitchen we talk about salt. The confusion is constant, and some labels take advantage of it by listing "sodium" — the smaller number — instead of salt. The conversion is simple: to go from sodium to salt, multiply by 2.5. A product with 0.8 g of sodium per 100 g actually has 2 g of salt per 100 g.

How much salt a day is the limit

The World Health Organization recommends adults do not exceed 5 grams of salt a day, equivalent to around 2 grams of sodium. The American Heart Association puts the general limit at 6 g of salt (2.4 g of sodium) and an ideal target of 3.75 g (1.5 g of sodium) for people with hypertension or cardiovascular risk. For children the limit is lower and scales with age. The uncomfortable figure is actual consumption: in Spain and most Western countries the average is around 9-10 g of salt a day, close to double the recommendation.

Why it matters: blood pressure, heart and more

Excess sodium makes the body hold more water to keep its balance, which increases blood volume and, with it, the pressure on artery walls. Sustained over time, it is one of the clearest modifiable drivers of hypertension, which in turn is the leading risk factor for stroke and heart attack. The accumulated evidence is solid: reducing sodium lowers blood pressure measurably, especially in people who are hypertensive or salt-sensitive. On top of that, excess salt is associated with greater fluid retention and, in some studies, with bone and kidney health. If you notice you swell easily, look at water retention; salt is usually behind it.

Where the salt you cannot see hides

This is where 70-75% of your daily salt lives, and almost none of it tastes especially salty. Bread is the perfect example: it does not taste salty, but because we eat a lot of it, it is one of the biggest salt sources in the diet. Here are the most common traps, per realistic portion.

How to read the label so nothing surprises you

Salt always appears on the nutrition panel, per 100 g and sometimes per portion. The quick reference public-health experts use is this: below 0.3 g of salt per 100 g is LOW, above 1.5 g per 100 g is HIGH. With that mental traffic light you decide in the supermarket aisle in two seconds. And do not trust the per-portion figure alone, which the manufacturer picks in its own favour: always look at the per-100 g number. If you want the full method, there is the guide on how to read nutrition labels.

How to cut back without it tasting of nothing

The mistake most people make when they decide to "eat less salt" is to remove the salt shaker and change nothing else. That only removes the small part, around 25%, and leaves you with bland food you abandon within two weeks. The strategy that works attacks the big part — the base of your shopping — and compensates for flavour with other tools, so your palate does not notice anything missing.

1. 1

   Attack the shopping basket, not the shaker

   Choose the lower-salt version of the products you eat daily: bread, cured meats, cheese, tinned goods. That is where 70% of your salt lives. Changing your brand of bread can remove more salt than a whole month of not salting your food.

2. 2

   Raise flavour with acid and aromatics

   Lemon, vinegar, garlic, onion, paprika, cumin, fresh herbs and pepper make food taste of more without a pinch of salt. The palate is looking for intensity, not necessarily sodium.

3. 3

   Reduce salt gradually

   The palate retrains itself in two to three weeks. If you lower salt step by step rather than all at once, you do not perceive the change and there is no feeling of sacrifice. Within a month, the food you used to eat will taste salty.

4. 4

   Rinse tinned food

   Draining and rinsing tinned pulses, tuna or sweetcorn removes a good share of the sodium from the covering liquid. A ten-second habit that subtracts salt without subtracting food.

5. 5

   Cook more at home

   Not because cooking is magic, but because that way YOU control how much salt goes in. In a restaurant dish or a ready meal, the salt has already been decided and it is usually generous. The share of ultra-processed food in your diet is the best predictor of your total salt.

The ally almost nobody uses: potassium

Cutting sodium is half the equation; the other half is raising potassium, which helps the body excrete sodium and relaxes vessel walls. Most of the population eats too little potassium and too much sodium, exactly the wrong way round. Fruit, vegetables, pulses, potato and nuts are rich in potassium, which is why a pattern like the DASH diet works so well for blood pressure: it does not only remove salt, it adds potassium. The detail is in the guide on potassium and blood pressure.

What if I train hard or sweat a lot?

Sodium is not a poison: it is an essential electrolyte and we lose it through sweat. Someone active in hot climates, or an endurance athlete training for more than an hour, has higher needs and should not obsess over cutting salt to the bone. But watch out for the marketing: most people worrying about "replacing sodium" live sedentary lives and a normal weekly shop already gives them salt to spare. Aggressive sodium replacement only makes sense for long, intense, sweaty efforts — not for going to the office.

To sum up: the limit is 5 g of salt (2 g of sodium) a day, we eat close to double, and the culprit is not the shaker but what already arrives salted in your shopping. Cutting back for real means choosing a better base (bread, cured meat, cheese, sauces), reading the label with the 0.3 and 1.5 g per 100 g traffic light, and raising flavour with acid and spices instead of salt. Because most of the salt hides in products that do not taste salty, the most useful step is simply to KNOW how much you are getting: when you photograph your meals with Renzy you see the day's accumulated sodium next to calories and macros, and you spot at a glance which of your regular dishes is the one blowing the count without you noticing.