Blood pressure nutrition has a push-pull structure, and it fits in one sentence: sodium pushes pressure up, potassium pulls it down — and the ratio between them matters as much as either alone. The American intake sits at roughly 3,400 mg sodium and 2,500 mg potassium daily; the DASH-pattern target flips that to under 2,300 mg sodium and toward 4,700 mg potassium. That flip is the whole game, and every food verdict on this site is a two-column scorecard of how far a food moves it.
Sodium is an osmotic regulator: eat more of it, and the body holds more water to keep blood concentration stable. More water in a fixed vascular system means more volume against the walls — higher pressure. The response is not linear or identical in everyone ("salt sensitivity" varies by age, genetics, and kidney function), but at the population level the DASH-Sodium trial made the dose-response about as clean as nutrition trials get: less sodium in, lower pressure out, at every diet quality level tested.
The intake reality is the ugly part: about 70% of American sodium comes not from the shaker but from processed and restaurant food, where salt is a structural ingredient — preservative, flavor carrier, and texture agent at once. That is why this site spends more time on cans and brines than on the salt shaker, and why the hidden sodium guide is arguably the most practically useful page here.
Potassium works the opposite side of the same kidney machinery: higher potassium intake nudges the kidneys to excrete more sodium (natriuresis) and helps blood-vessel walls relax. The DASH pattern targets about 4,700 mg/day from food. Population research lands on a comparable figure: hypertensive adults eating an extra 2,300 mg of potassium a day run systolic pressures about 5.3 mmHg lower — the territory of a first-line medication at low dose, bought with groceries.
Two honest caveats. First, the food-first rule: potassium from pills is a different risk profile (and for people with kidney disease, a dangerous one — a clinician conversation, not a blog decision). Second, potassium's benefit compounds with sodium reduction; neither lever alone matches the pair, which the DASH-Sodium trial demonstrated directly.
The potassium leaders are not exotic: potatoes with skin (up to 1,627 mg per serving in this database), beans and lentils (400–700 mg), bananas (806 mg per cup — see the banana verdict), cooked greens such as Swiss chard (961 mg), fish like salmon (628 mg — see the salmon verdict), and soy foods. Fruit and vegetables together carry the column almost by definition: whole plant foods are potassium-dense and sodium-silent.
The sodium leaders are equally unexotic but wear disguises: canned soups (up to 1,621.8 mg per can — the first case file), cured and deli meats, bread (the top single source in American diets by volume, at 100–200 mg a slice), cheese, sauces, and brine-cured anything. The rule of thumb: if it was preserved, brined, cured, or boxed with a seasoning packet, the sodium column is doing structural work.
You do not need to compute sodium-to-potassium ratios at the counter — the two-column verdicts do it for you, one food at a time. The daily version is almost as mechanical: make most plates potassium-heavy by construction (a vegetable or bean anchor), keep the sodium budget for deliberate choices, and let the ratio fall where the DASH numbers want it. The complete guide turns that into a plate method; the DASH made-real guide turns it into a week of meals.
If you apply this page once, apply it in the produce aisle. A basket built from the potassium column — potatoes, bananas, spinach, dried beans, tomatoes, salmon — requires no label reading at all, because whole foods do not carry nutrition panels and their sodium columns are silent by nature. The reading is reserved for the center of the store, where the boxes live and where the 30-second routine earns its keep. That division of labor — potassium from the perimeter, scrutiny from the aisles — is the practical summary of everything above, and it is how most long-term DASH eaters actually shop.
One more honest note on the ratio itself: researchers who study it measure sodium and potassium in urine over 24 hours, because intake logs are unreliable and the kidneys are the accountants. You will never run that test for fun. But the pattern that moves the ratio — more plants, fewer factory-salted boxes — shows up in your grocery cart first, and the verdicts on this site are built to make that cart decision fast.
Population research points to a urinary ratio under 1.0 — more potassium than sodium — being associated with meaningfully lower cardiovascular risk. The practical version: potassium-heavy plates built from whole plant foods, sodium kept under the 2,300 mg ceiling.
No — not without a clinician's direction. Food-first potassium carries no realistic overdose risk in healthy kidneys; supplements do, and they are outright dangerous for readers with kidney disease or on potassium-sparing medications.
No — by weight, all salts run about 40% sodium. The trace minerals in unrefined salts are marketing quantities. The sodium column does not care about the color of the crystal.
SodiumScore is an independent data project — not a medical practice.
Ratings derive from USDA FoodData Central nutrient data and the 2025 ACC/AHA Hypertension Guidelines (DASH pattern).
Dietary reference information only. Always consult your healthcare provider before making dietary changes.
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