• A little salt is essential for our health. But on average people eat more than twice the amount they need, which can increase blood pressure and in turn increase the risk of a heart attack or stroke.
• Salt is a nutrient with the name sodium chloride. Sodium is also found in other forms in baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) and in a product for curing meats (sodium nitrate). Only 5 per cent of salt occurs naturally in food.
• The recommended daily intake of salt for adults is 4g, with 6g an acceptable maximum, but children should consume much smaller amounts, depending on their age.
•One average portion of tinned or packet soup, tinned cook-in sauce, pork sausages, rashers or baked beans will give between a third and a half of the 6g per day maximum.
•As a guide, the high-salt foods people should cut down on are cured and processed meats such as ham and sausages, packet and tinned soups, instant noodles, ketchup, tinned sauces and salty savoury snacks.
• Using alternative flavourings such as black pepper, herbs, spices, garlic and lemon juice and limiting the use of stock cubes, gravy granules and ready-made sauces will help cut down on salt, as will keeping portion sizes under control.
•Food labels often list the sodium content rather than the salt content. To work out how much salt is in a food, multiply the sodium figure by 2.5. So if a pizza has 2g of sodium per 100g, this will work out at 5g of salt per 100g.
Source: the Irish Heart Foundation leaflet, Time to Cut Down on Salt.