Topic: Sodium

The number this site is built around is 2,300 mg. That is the daily sodium ceiling in the 2025 ACC/AHA hypertension guidance and in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, with 1,500 mg as the ideal target for most adults who already have high blood pressure. Average American intake sits near 3,300 mg a day, so the gap is not a rounding error — it is roughly a third of the day, every day.

Where it comes from is the part people get wrong. The shaker is a minor contributor. A teaspoon of table salt carries about 2,300 mg on its own, but most of the sodium in a normal day was added before the food reached the kitchen — in bread, cheese, cured meat, canned goods, sauces and restaurant cooking. Our database sorts that out item by item: of 6,689 foods scored, 1,322 carry a limit verdict, and the top of that column is populated by dry mixes and cured products rather than anything that looks like a seasoning mistake.

The practical test we use throughout the site is 140 mg per serving. Under that line is green, 140 to 340 mg is a yellow, and above 340 mg the food has to earn its place in the day. That single threshold catches more real problems than any general advice about eating less salt, because it is specific enough to apply in an aisle with a package in your hand.

The articles collected here work the sodium column from several directions: foods that look innocent and are not, packaged staples that quietly supply a third of the ceiling in one sitting, and the swaps that cut the number without cutting the meal. Where the evidence is thin or contested, the write-up says so.

10 articles in this topic