Heart Research UK Healthy Heart Tip, written by the Health Promotion and Education Team at Heart Research UK
Healthy Heart Tip: Reducing Salt Intake
Consuming too much salt may raise your blood pressure, increasing your risk of developing heart diseases.
Salt is a source of sodium, which is an essential part of a healthy diet, but when we consume too much, it can have a negative impact on our cardiovascular system. Adults shouldn’t consume more than 6g of salt (2.5g of sodium) per day, but most of us consume more than that.
Here we outline some ways you can reduce and keep an eye on your intake:
Cook from scratch
Cooking from scratch for most of your meals is the best way to know what your meal contains. Shop-bought sauces, marinades, soups and ‘ready meals’ are often high in salt.
We recommend batch cooking homemade versions of the sauces and ‘ready meals’ you enjoy on a regular basis and freezing them for convenience later on. We have a recipe for a Veggie-Packed Tomato Sauce on our website.
Use herbs & spices
Fresh ingredients like lemon, wholegrain mustard, garlic and herbs like ginger, coriander, sage, parsley and basil offer so much flavour to meals when combined well.
Once you start experimenting with herbs and spices to add flavour to your meals, you will naturally find you need to add less salt.
Read food labels
When buying convenience foods always check the salt content and choose low salt options where possible. Most foods will list the salt content based on 100g, if a food has more than 1.5g of salt or 0.6g of sodium per 100g it is classed as a high salt food.
If a food item uses the traffic light system these high salt foods will be marked red, so it makes it easier to avoid them.
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Or have a look through our cookbook filled with recipes from top chefs, celebrities and food bloggers: https://heartresearch.org.uk/heart-research-uk-cookbook/.