Ive been looking at the salt figures in food recently and also researching the internet. There are some scientists etc who say salt in poison and the 6g limit per day is way too high, our body only needs around 3g. And the average we eat per day is 8g.

Some takeaways mainly pizzas and chinese had up to 10g of salt in one portion almost twice the daily GDA.

I have found a lot of supermarket meals to be high in salt too eg breaded chickens, soups. Bread and cereals are not too high.

I personally never add any salt to my food, parents do however.
does anyone else hate the amount of salt being added to foods??

About 15 years ago I was put on a low salt diet and as I never put salt in my veg or on my food (except chips!) I wondered how I could do it. Then I started reading the ingredients on packageing and was shocked just how much salt there is in our foods, not just takeaways etc. I started cooking my food from scratch and cutting out salted butter, cheese and things like that. After a while I found that just walking past a McDonalds all I could smell was salt and fat! I'm not as rigorous these days but I very, very rarely have a takeaway and there's still a few things I can't stand like salted butter.

I never add salt to any food either, apart from when I have chips which is rarely. There is far too much added salt in food these days,we seem to be obsessed with the stuff.

I mostly eat home cooked food so my intake must be quite low.

I add salt to nearly everything I cook, not huge amounts but you'll find that salt will make virtually everything taste better, including many sweet items.

There almost certainly is too much salt in processed food. I wouldn't worry about salt in home cooking as it's in much smaller amounts. The problem with food manufactures and salt is that it's not just - or even primarily - to make things taste better, it's not just a seasoning. It's present as preservatives and stabilisers and all sorts of food science quackery that you simply wouldn't do in your own kitchen. Takeaways also add too much and that is, I guess, for reasons of taste - though I can't imagine why they think so much salt would taste good.

I use MyFitnessPal to track salt/sodium levels and it's shocking that it usually only takes one additional processed food, like a tin of soup, to push me over the limit.

Strange isnt it, if I do have home cooked with salt added I find that it just tastes of salt, I suppose its because I am not used to the taste in my food.

I think there's far too much salt in food generally. The sad thing is that I'm so used to it, that low salt alternatives can seem a bit tasteless. It probably takes the tastebuds a while to adapt, but I'm sure it's possible.

I don't read anything I eat, I go more on the basis of if I like it I eat it. My diet is varied, I eat takeaway once a week, I have microwave meals and home cooked stuff too. If I've used salt in the cooking then I never add it, funnily enough I've found since they've reduced salt in processed food I've had to add it to make it taste good! My dad is a war child and says they ate so much salt back then that it'd cause an outrage now, yet they are amongst the longest living generation. I'm much more concerned with the chemicals in our foods than salt.

If you cook fresh you dont need to worry about overdosing on salt.

Its preprocessed food that has all the salt in. I love salt in home made food as a seasoning.

My dear Aunt put salt on her food every day, never missed, lived until she was 96 as well.
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Yes, I'm sure that's true.


My beloved granny did the same and she smoked 200 a day. She was 156 when she died.

I'm supposed to keep to about 6g salt a day (diabetic).
One thing I've noticed with reading labels is that often the quantities given are for a 'portion' - eg soup is 1.5g so its easy to assume lunch is going to be 1.5g - but the 'portion' is only half a tin. Now I'm not a greedy bloke but half a tin of soup isn't going to keep me going 'til teatime so really it will be 3g

Ideally I make my own - I try to use the Kello very low salt stock but its become very hard to source. If you do find it a top tip is to use double the quantity and go heavy on herbs/pepper/spice to add some flavour until you get used to low salt.

Car accident?

Is there too much salt in our food?

Indeed there is and here are the recommended salt reduction targets: http://webarchive.nationalarchives.g...ay/salttargets

The thing to do is not add any additional salt to processed foods, e.g. bread, takeaways, ready meals, tinned foods, breakfast cereals, etc. which already has enough added salt and, when home cooking food, use something like a low sodium salt (available in supermarkets or online) or herb seasoning salt.

I use low sodium salt, either lo salt or Sainsburys own. the only normal salt I got here now is a small pot, which I use for making bread.

I am addicted to having much too much salt and I know this from pouring loads of salt into my cooking. I think my love for processed food in the past (well, and in the present if I am honest) has created this love for salt, salt, and more salt. Even in my cakes, I refuse to use unsalted butter in the cake itself AND in the buttercream. I hate the taste of unsalted buttercream.

I am so into salt that I will pour salt into processed ready meals which are already full of salt.

My mum suggests I cut the f*ck down on salt.

I put salt in every dish.

In my opinion most things I cook from scratch benefit from adding salt and pepper.

I don't add any extra salt to food I prepare myself. Not needed as far as I'm concerned.

Black pepper, however...

Hardly use much salt at home, got used to it pretty quick. When eating elsewhere food does taste over seasoned, especially restaurants and takeaways.

I remember once I was cooking and added way too much salt, so that was all I could taste. I tried adding more garlic and spices. Then suddenly the salt taste was masked, and what I had tasted like commercial prepared foods. Since then I've been suspicious that quite a lot of prepared foods find ways to include large amounts of salt while masking the flavour.

I've heard that monosodium glutamate is one way of reducing sodium intake, as it has similar taste enhancing properties to salt, but has much less sodium per gram. Although perhaps becoming used to less salty food is the best option.

I cant tell if your being sarcastic.

Stop eating junk and make your own meals, simple as that really.

The cooks on the television use more salt than I do.

Yes, their pinch is usually closer to a small fist full!

Completely agree! Especially when you consider the recommended daily maximum, 6g, is just one teaspoon. I don't add salt to anything, I don't think there's even any in the house! My mum's a dietician and never used salt either so I wonder whether you just get used to the taste of food either with or without it.