By Colette Dreyer RD (SA)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How much salt is too much? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Did you know that South Africans consume approximately 6-12\ng (>1-2 tsp) of salt per day? The recommended amount is below 5 g of salt (1\nteaspoon), which makes the average intake twice the recommended level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s a lot of different foods that are not known as salty\nfoods, but still contain high amounts of hidden salt. Because most of our daily\nsalt allowance is already added in the foods when purchased we would like to\npass on the salt by making small changes like only adding a pinch of salt when\ncooking and avoiding adding extra salt at the table. Salt intake can be lowered\nby tasting food during food preparation to determine if salt is indeed needed,\nand to avoid adding unnecessary salt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Watch out for other high salt ingredients by checking labels:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sodium is the most common alternative name that is used on\nfood labels for salt. Sodium combined with chloride makes salt. Sodium is the\ncomponent that can increase blood pressure and should therefore be limited. The\nsodium content on the label can be divided by 400 to get the grams of salt. For\nexample, 2000 mg of Sodium is the same as 5 g salt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Grillo A, Salvi L,\nCoruzzi P, Salvi P, Parati G. Sodium intake and hypertension. Nutrients.\n2019;11(9):1970.<\/p>\n\n\n\n