The government recommends that adults should eat six grammes of salt a day. However, the average intake of salt is nine grammes a day. The main sources of salt in the diet are processed foods and salt added during cooking or at the table. Meat and meat products, and bread can also be high in salt. However, recent research published in The Lancet medical journal suggested that most people could not tell the difference between loaves with markedly different salt content.
Salt is added to processed foods to aid preservation and to improve taste.
Sodium is present in additives such as monosodium glutamate and sodium bicarbonate. Small amounts of sodium can be found naturally in some foods such as eggs and fish. Salt has been linked to increased blood pressure Dr Wynnie Chan, a nutrition scientist for the British Nurtrition Foundation, says that everybody should look to reduce the amount of salt in their diet. Reading food labels can be confusing as they often give the sodium, rather than the salt content of food.