What is salt?
Salt is made up of sodium and chloride. Both these components are essential to help to balance the levels of fluid in the body and are important for nerve conduction and muscle contraction.

How much salt should we eat?
The UK Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) has recommended the following average intakes:

• 1-6 months – less than 1g a day

• 7-12 months – no more than 1g a day

• 1 to 3 years – 2 g a day (0.8g sodium)

• 4 to 6 years – 3g salt a day (1.2g sodium)

• 7 to 10 years – 5g a day (2g sodium)

• 11 and over – 6g a day (2.5g sodium)

Too much or too little salt:
While there is continuing medical debate over the role of salt intake on health, the UK food industry has responded to the requests from the Food Standards Agency, based on the SACN’s advice, by making strenuous efforts to reduce the levels of salt added to foods.
It is worth noting that eliminating any food stuff from your diet may have health implications and a dietary deficiency in salt may cause low blood pressure, dehydration and muscle cramps. If you are concerned about your salt intake or blood pressure, do not self-diagnose but visit your GP for advice.

Food Labelling:
Check the labeling on foods to identify how much salt/sodium is contained therein. UK guidelines on nutrition claims suggest the following for food labeling purposes:

‘High Salt’:
A food is considered to be ‘high salt’ if it contains 0.5g of sodium per 100g.

‘Low’ Salt:
A ‘low salt’ food should have no more than 40mg of sodium per 100g.

‘Reduced’ Salt:
Products labeled ‘reduced’ salt must contain 25% less salt than the standard equivalent product.

How to cut down on salt?
• Most of the sodium/salt in our diets comes from processed foods. So check the nutrition information on product labels when choosing foods for their sodium/salt content. (The salt equivalent is approximately 2.5 times the sodium content).

• Taste food before you add salt!

• Choose low salt snacks, e.g. dried fruit, unsalted nuts, as opposed to high salt snacks – crisps, salted nuts.

• Add less salt to home-made dishes – try to use other flavours as a substitute.

• Choose products labelled ‘no added salt’, ‘low in salt’ or ‘reduced salt’.