We all need a little bit of salt because it helps to keep your body fluids at the right concentration. However, the majority of us eat more salt than we need. If you eat too much salt, your volume of body fluids increases and pushes up your blood pressure. High blood pressure can lead to serious problems like heart disease or stroke.
Salt recommendations
On average, people in the UK eat about 8.1g salt (3.2g sodium) a day. This may not sound like much, but to reduce the risk of disease, adults should not be eating more than 6g salt (2.4g sodium) a day.
Salt levels should be much lower than this for babies and children. Babies should have less than 1g of salt a day. The daily recommended maximum amount of salt children should eat depends on their age:
- 1 to 3 years – 2g salt a day (0.8g sodium)
- 4 to 6 years – 3g salt a day (1.2g sodium)
- 7 to 10 years – 5g salt a day (2g sodium)
- 11 years and over – 6g salt a day (2.4g sodium)
Salty tips
As salt is often a 'hidden ingredient' in many foods, it can sometimes be difficult to work out how much you are eating. Some foods, such as crisps, olives, and bacon, taste obviously salty, and can easily be removed from your diet if you are trying to cut down.
However, 75% of the salt we eat comes from ready-made foods, such as bread, cereals and baked beans. Even sweet things, like biscuits, have salt added to them.
To keep track of your salt intake, get into the habit of reading the nutritional information on food labels, where you will find the salt (sodium) content for 100g serving. As a rough guide:
a high amount of salt is more than 1.5g for 100g (0.6g sodium), and
a low amount of salt is 0.3 g for 100g (0.1g sodium).
See tips for a lower salt diet for more information and advice about reducing your salt intake.
Further information:
