by Silva Payne

Created on: April 17, 2009   Last Updated: January 13, 2010

There are several reasons why you should consider a low-sodium diet, not least if you have high blood pressure. A high salt intake may not necessarily cause high blood pressure, but an existing hypertension state is exacerbated by a high salt intake. Other health implications are greater retention of water in your body, which leads to swelling of the ankles and weight gain. Those prone to osteoporosis, asthma and kidney disease should certainly aim to reduce their sodium intake, although reducing sodium in the diet will benefit the majority of people.

A low-sodium diet means daily consumption of no more than 2 grams (2000 milligrams), that's about half the amount of sodium in the average diet. However, regular salt is actually sodium and chloride. Many food labels only state the amount of sodium in the food. This is shown as fractions of a gram of sodium per 100 grams of food, so it is necessary to multiply the sodium concentration by 2.5 in order to convert it to salt (ie sodium and chloride). Therefore: 1 gram of sodium = 2.5 grams of salt.

It may sound simple, just don't add salt to your food, right? Unfortunately it is not that easy. Sodium is added to many different processed foods, and can be present even when there is no salty taste. You can find sodium in the most unlikely places, particularly in foods and dishes that you would naturally expect to have a sugary sweet taste. So the first step in your low-sodium lifestyle should be to cut down on the amount of processed foods that you consume.

By "processed foods", we mean foods that are not in their raw or uncooked state, or foods that have had the minimum of human preparation at point of sale. Think of the ham or chicken that you put in your lunchtime sandwiches; does it look like it was freshly carved from a larger joint of meat, or does it come in square pieces dripping and shiny with water? The shape should be a major clue, but also the water: many processed foods are "plumped up" by injecting them with a sodium-water solution. Salt is a preservative, and it adds to the shelf-life of raw produce that is not frozen.

Ready-prepared meals that you just throw in the oven straight from the refrigerator are almost certainly going to contain more sodium than if you made the same dish yourself at home. Again, it acts as a preservative. We use these ready meals because we are convinced our modern lifestyles do not include enough time to prepare healthy meals in 20 minutes, but that's just another advertising

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