A major salt reduction campaign is currently underway in the UK. The UK Food Standards Agency points out that the World Health Organization recommends people's daily salt intake should not exceed 6 grams, otherwise it will increase the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. But how can you know how much salt you have eaten in a day? There is a simple way to judge.
In daily diet, people's intake of salt mainly comes from meals and other foods. The salt content in meals cannot be accurately judged, especially when eating in a restaurant, you can only guess based on the saltiness of the food. However, most packaged foods bought from the supermarket indicate the content of salt or sodium on the package. Salt is composed of sodium and chloride, as long as the sodium content on the package is multiplied by 2.5, it is the salt content.
Knowing this principle, we can judge through the labels on food packaging whether a food contains too much salt, and whether our own daily salt intake exceeds the standard. The standard given by the UK Food Standards Agency is: for an adult, if the food packaging indicates more than 1.25 grams of salt or more than 0.5 grams of sodium per 100 grams, it means the salt content exceeds the standard; if it indicates 0.25-1.25 grams of salt or 0.1-0.5 grams of sodium per 100 grams, it means the salt content is moderate.
For children, the standards for salt intake vary by age group: infants aged 0-6 months should not exceed 1 gram per day; infants aged 7-12 months should have 1 gram per day; children aged 1-3 years should have 2 grams per day; 4-6 years old should have 3 grams per day; 7-10 years old should have 5 grams per day; 11-14 years old and above should have 6 grams per day.
In addition, the salt reduction campaign also reminds everyone to eat less pickled food, drink less soup, and eat less instant noodles, because the soup base contains an average of 60% salt, and the more soup you drink, the more salt you consume.