Salt is forty percent sodium by weight, so every gram of salt delivers four hundred milligrams of sodium. Nutrition labels quote sodium while recipes quote salt, and the confusion between them hides how much we really eat. This converter turns your total daily salt grams into sodium milligrams and checks them against the twenty three hundred milligram upper limit and the fifteen hundred milligram ideal.
Your visual report appears here
Fill in the form and press Calculate. You will get your number, an interpretation chip, and a personalized chart pack drawn instantly in your browser.
- Risk spectrum with your position marked
- Reference ranges from the original publication
- Shareable link, nothing stored
Scientific references
Few numbers in nutrition are confused as routinely as salt and sodium. Salt is sodium chloride, and sodium makes up forty percent of its weight. A label reading fifteen hundred milligrams of sodium equals nearly four grams of salt, and a recipe’s teaspoon of salt, about six grams, carries twenty four hundred milligrams of sodium, an entire day’s upper limit in one spoon.
Why the Limits Exist
Sodium draws water into the bloodstream, raising volume and pressure. Decades of trials show pressure falling dose dependently as sodium drops, and high intake tracks with stroke and stomach cancer in cohort studies. The standard upper limit is twenty three hundred milligrams daily, while the American Heart Association’s ideal target sits at fifteen hundred, roughly the level where blood pressure benefits maximize for most adults.
Where It Actually Comes From
The salt shaker contributes only about ten percent of intake in industrialized diets. Bread, cheese, cured meats, soups, sauces and restaurant meals supply the bulk, which is why home cooking changes the math more than table habits. A single fast food meal can deliver two thirds of the daily budget before any shaker appears.
Reading Labels Correctly
European labels often list salt while American ones list sodium. Multiply salt grams by four hundred to compare with American guidance, or divide sodium milligrams by four hundred to compare with European. Serving size games shrink both numbers, so check what the declared portion actually means against what you eat.
Potassium counterbalances sodium’s pressure effect, so increasing fruit and vegetable intake works alongside cutting salt rather than instead of it.