Did you know your food can tell you how much salt it contains? Remember that we should all aim to eat a healthy balanced diet that is low in salt. Most people eat too much salt. This can raise blood pressure, which increases your risk of heart disease and stroke. We can all take steps to eat less salt by shopping wisely and being sparing with it at home.
The Food Standards Agency reckon that about 75% of the salt intake of most people in the UK comes from processed food. This is why BabyBoomersUK is so keen to get people to grow, cook and eat their own food. That way you can be in no doubt about what goes into it. And you also get the benefit of controlling the amounts of sugar and fat that you and your family eat.
The maximum recommended salt intake for adults is 6g a day. During cooking this is easy to measure but if you eat a high proportion of processed food, control of salt intake gets harder. While BabyBoomersUK are not experts on nutrition, what we say is:
- Take more notice of the salt content listed on the processed foods that you buy
- Cook more yourself, it might take more time but once you get used to preparation, it reduces
- Reduce the salt that you put into your cooking, so that the time that you take to prepare food, gives your family a healthier diet and buys them time later.
So how much salt is 6 grams? Its about a teaspoonful. 
So, next time that you are buying a pie or ready meal in the supermarket, make sure you know how much of your daily maximum of salt that it contains.
