Okay, so let's look at the sources of salt in the typical diet.
We get our salt (sodium) from three main sources:
- About 15% comes from the sodium that's naturally present in fresh foods.
- About 15% comes from the salt we add in cooking and at the table.
- About 70% comes from processed and convenience foods, many of which have salt added. In other words, most salt is consumed before we even pick up the salt cellar.
So how much salt are YOU consuming?
The answer is not as straightforward as you might think. You'd probably expect French fries, savoury biscuits and salted peanuts to contain salt, but did you know that a bowl of corn flakes contains more salt than North Atlantic seawater or that a loaf of white bread has almost double the salt of ready-salted fries?
Calculating sodium and salt content
To make it even more confusing, many food manufacturers don't list the amount of salt on the packet. Instead, they list the quantity of sodium. To calculate how much salt is in your food, multiply the sodium content by 2.5.
For example:
Sodium content of 0.5g x 2.5 = 1.25g of salt
