Most of the sodium we eat doesn’t necessarily come from the salt we put on our food.
According to Memorial Hospital South dietician Ruth Marcus, 75 percent of our daily sodium intake is already inside the foods we are eating.
NBCMiami asked grocery shoppers how much sodium they believed should be consumed on a daily basis.
“I’m not sure. I think it’s no more than 2500 milligrams a day,” Marcus said.
The current sodium guidelines suggest no more than 2,300 milligrams daily which is the equivalent of one teaspoon of salt. New guidelines, currently in proposal, further restrict sodium intake to 1500 milligram daily.
“Most people are consuming a lot more than that, more like 300-4000 milligrams a day” Marcus explains.
Canned soups, canned vegetables, and frozen dinners contain much more sodium than you may think.
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Marcus suggests, “Look for the percentage of sodium on the right side of the nutrition label and choose most products that [have] 10% or less.”
Publix is currently posting nutrition facts on their shelves in an effort to make it easier for consumers to find low sodium products.
