Archive for March, 2010

We have been thinking a lot about sodium lately. Every time we enter a grocery store item on this site, or look to buy prepared items to make things like chili baked potatoes, we find that most things have 30% or more of our recommended daily allowance (RDA) of sodium. We also began to notice (while calculating nutrition for homemade baked goods) that with just a small amount of added salt, each serving was quite high in sodium compared with what we expected. We began to wonder: how much is our RDA of sodium, really? What is sodium good for, and what are the downsides of taking in too much?

We learned that our RDA is just under 1 teaspoon of salt! We’re not sure what we expected, but a teaspoon was definitely less than what we thought. After all, how liberally do some of us salt our food! It isn’t too hard to get a teaspoon of salt in one’s daily diet, and with one trip down the prepared food aisles we quickly see how it is VERY easy to go way over that number. We also learned that in the United Kingdom the RDA for sodium for adults and children is < 1600 (just under 3/4 tsp of table salt). According to the Mayo Clinic, 77% of our sodium intake comes from processed and prepared foods, with only 5% added from cooking.

Why do we need salt?

Salt helps regulate the fluid in our bodies. However, when sodium levels get too high, it can cause a blood pressure increase, which is subsequently linked to greater risk of heart disease and stroke. Most Americans get 3,000 to 4,000 milligrams of sodium every day(!), almost double the RDA and more than twice the recommended value in the UK. (more…)