Contents
Recommended daily dose of sodium
How much salt do we need daily?
What is the recommended dose of salt?
The salt needs of all individuals are highly variable since they depend on different factors such as climate (hot weather is needed to eat more salt than cold weather), work (those activities that require more effort and increase the required sweat intakes of salt), etc.
To avoid excessive intake of salt the World Health Organization recommends that salt intake is between 500 mg daily minimum and maximum 2000 mg daily. We must be extremely careful with those foods high in salt to avoid eating more salt than necessary.
Most of the excess salt is produced by adding this in the food when cooking or eating packaged food or prepared with salt, preservatives or flavoring made based on salts. These would include preservatives such as sodium nitrate or flavorings such as monosodium glutamate.
When should we eat salt?
One should not salt fish or meat. A diet rich in fruits and vegetables helps to contain salt intake.
List of foods with little salt
Low-salt diet
Problems of the abuse of salt: The excess of sodium is not recommendable for health. The ingestion of an amount superior to the needed one sodium can produce the following corporal problems:
- Hypertension: The direct relationship between excessive salt intake and hypertension has been verified.
- Kidney disease: There is a relationship between excessive salt intake and kidney disease.
- Problems of dehydration in infants and young children: excessive salt intake in infants and young children can cause dehydration problems.
- Osteoporosis: Having too much salt leads to an increasing in the elimination of calcium, which helps the development of osteoporosis.
More information on sodium.
MINERAL LIST
| MINERALS | MACROELEMENTS | MICROELEMENTS |
| Calcium, chlorine, phosphorus, magnesium, sodium, potassium | Copper, chromium, fluorine, iron, manganese, molybdenum, selenium, iodine, zinc. |
