Daily salt limit, high salt(sodium) foods in Indian diet

Excessive dietary intake of sodium is a common problem these days. Most people are unaware of  daily limit for salt. Most households do not have a measuring spoon or a weighing-scale that makes it even more difficult to clearly understand how much salt is 'enough'.

Excessive intake of salt not only leads to diseases(like blood pressure, heart failure, etc.) but also reduces the beneficial effects of BP-control medicines that the patients may be taking. There are many cases where patient's BP was not controlled despite medicines because of excessive salt intake. Patients whose BP remains high despite taking BP medicines may be victim of excessive salt entering the body through foods.

According to WHO guidelines, an adult must not consume more than 2 grams of sodium in a day.

2 grams of sodium = 5 grams of salt = 1 teaspoon of salt = daily limit for an adult.

Note: 'Salt' is a compound of sodium and chlorine. 5 grams of salt contain 2 grams of Sodium and 3 grams of Chlorine.

Most types of kitchen salt(white salt, black salt, pink salt, sendha salt, rock salt, etc.) have the same 2 grams of sodium per teaspoon. So changing cooking salt will not help to meaningfully reduce sodium intake.

One should note that 'salt' added during cooking is not the only source of sodium in diet. Few other substances, especially additives like baking powder, baking soda, flavour enhancers, ajino moto, etc.

Often patients do not realise from 'where' they are getting the excessive salt. Patient's believe that food that contain salt should taste salty - and this is where they go wrong. They eat many not tasting so salty foods, which is the culprit. Below I am enlisting some foods that are high in sodium.

1. Restaurant food
2. Chinese food - uses high common salt, ajino-moto and soya sauce. Soya sauce itself contains lot of sodium.
3. All junk food and fast food. There is nothing called as diet or healthy fast food. All fast food, including 2 to 3 minutes noodles, burgers, pizza, potato fries, etc. are high in salt. Even Indian namkeen which is considered as a traditional food is high in salt.
4. All bakery foods such as bread - whether white or brown, cakes and pastries(even though they taste sweet but not salty)
5. Traditional Indian pickles
6. Cheese

Spice blends(masala like garam masala , pav bhaji masala, pani puri masala, kitchen king masala, sambhar masala, jal-jira, etc.) also contain sodium. But it is not easy to measure how much salt has entered your food through this route. Some manufacturers do print an approximate measure of sodium per 100 grams of the masala, but still difficult to measure while cooking.

Most brands Ginger-Garlic paste also contain added salt.

Many processed and packed foods will contain nutrition labels which will mention approximate amount of sodium per 100 grams of the food. However, one need not take the trouble to read them because almost all processed food is high in salt.