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Published on Wednesday, 07 June 2006
While we all need a little salt in our diet, you will no doubt be aware that most of us get too much, which can be bad for the heart, especially if you have high blood pressure. Around three quarters of the salt in our diet comes from processed foods. So if you would like to eat less and meet the recommended limit of 6g per day:
cook using fresh foods (including plenty of fruit and vegetables) whenever possible
look for packaged foods, or foods eaten out, which have no added or reduced levels of salt (or sodium - nutrition labels usually list salt as sodium as salt is made up of sodium chloride. To convert sodium to salt, multiply the sodium value by 2.5)
keep foods or meals high in salt as occasional rather than everyday foods
think twice before adding salt to cooking and at the table.