Introduction: A large-scale salt reduction campaign is currently underway in the UK. The UK Food Standards Agency points out that the World Health Organization calls for people to consume no more than 6 grams of salt per day, as exceeding this amount increases the risk of high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. But how can you know how much salt you consume in a day? There is a simple way to judge.
In daily diets, people's salt intake mainly comes from meals and other foods. The salt content in meals cannot be accurately determined, especially when eating in restaurants, and one can only guess based on the saltiness of the food. However, most packaged foods bought from supermarkets indicate the content of salt or sodium. Salt is composed of sodium and chloride, so as long as the sodium content on the package is multiplied by 2.5, you get the salt content.
Knowing this principle, we can use the labels on food packaging to determine whether a food contains too much salt and whether our daily salt intake exceeds the standard. The standard given by the UK Food Standards Agency is: for an adult, if the food packaging states that it contains 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 states 0.25-1.25 grams of salt or 0.1-0.5 grams of sodium per 100 grams, it indicates a moderate salt content.
For children, the recommended salt intake varies 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; children aged 4-6 years should have 3 grams per day; children aged 7-10 years should have 5 grams per day; and children aged 11-14 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, as soup bases contain an average of 60% salt, and the more soup you drink, the more salt you consume.