Converting salt and sodium
While most people know they should cut back on their salt intake, understanding what to look for can cause some confusion. Is a food label high or low in salt and how does sodium convert to salt?
As nutritional labels may refer to either salt or sodium, it is handy to know how to convert sodium to salt and salt to sodium.
Pass the salt
The World Health Organisation recommends that adults should consume less than 6g of salt a day - equivalent to one teaspoon of salt.
However, the reality is that globally we all tend to consume much more salt than this on a daily basis - even in developing countries.
Salt on nutrition labels
Reading food labels is the quickest and easiest way to see whether a food is high or low in salt. Here in the UK the following numbers are used to define whether a food is low or high in salt.
Low salt - less than 0.3g salt per 100g (0.01 sodium)
High salt - more than 1.5g salt per 100g (0.6g sodium)
Converting sodium to salt
If you are trying to convert sodium to grams of salt, this simple formula is worth remembering.
Sodium in mg x 2.5 /1000 = salt in g
Converting salt to sodium
Likewise, if you're interested in how much sodium there is in a food product when only grams of salt are listed, this formula will help you convert that.
Salt in g x 1000/ 2.5 = sodium in mg
Gemma
Fuel your cycling with confidence
Do you want to know how best to fuel your training sessions? Are you keen to lose weight and optimise your performance?
The Cycling Nutrition Framework will fuel your cycling goals.