Health Tips: The Importance of eating less salt – no more than 6g a day for adults

Many people think they don’t eat much salt, especially if they don’t add it to their food. Please read carefully and see why it is important that you Eat Less Salt.

In the Nigeria for example  Every day, 87% men and 65% women tend to eat too much salt. But it is advisable that Adults (and children 13 and above) should have no more than 6g salt per day. In fact Younger children should have even less.

The simple truth is,Most of the salt we eat, about three-quarters, is already in the food we buy, such as some breakfast cereals, soups, sauces, bread and ready meals. So you could easily be eating too much salt without knowing.

There are lots of side effects to eating too much salt, for example,Eating too much salt can raise your blood pressure. And people with high blood pressure are more likely to develop heart disease or have a stroke than people with normal blood pressure. So as you can see, eating too much salt can lead to chain of bad results.

 

How to know if a  food is high in salt

For Canned or Packaged food: Read the label carefully and look at the figure for salt per 100g.

The food is high in salt if it is more than 1.5g salt per 100g (or 0.6g sodium) The food is Low if it is 0.3g salt or less per 100g (or 0.1g sodium)
If the amount of salt per 100g is in between these figures, then that is a medium level of salt.
Also keep in mind that the amount you eat of a particular food affects how much salt you will get from it.
Don’t forget to read the labels on different foods and try to choose the one that’s lower in salt.