What is the daily sodium limit?

The US guideline is less than 2,300 mg a day for adults, about one teaspoon of salt. The American Heart Association suggests an ideal limit of 1,500 mg for most adults, particularly those with high blood pressure. Average US intake is around 3,400 mg.

Where does most dietary sodium come from?

Roughly 70% comes from packaged, processed and restaurant food, added before you ever see it. Only about 10% comes from the salt shaker at the table or in home cooking. The rest occurs naturally in food.

Which foods are highest in sodium?

Bread and rolls are the single largest contributor in the US diet, not because they are salty but because people eat so much of them. Then deli meats, pizza, soup, sandwiches, cheese and restaurant chicken dishes.

Sodium: the hardest cap to keep, and why

About 70% of the sodium people eat was added before they bought the food. That is why cooking without salt barely moves the number, and why this one needs tracking rather than willpower.

The AIM teamOctober 4, 20264 min read

Sodium is the cap people fail most reliably, and they fail it for a reason that has nothing to do with discipline.

The limit is under 2,300 mg a day. Average US intake is around 3,400 mg. The American Heart Association's ideal figure is 1,500 mg, which almost nobody reaches.

The salt shaker is not the problem

About 70% of dietary sodium is already in the food when you buy it: added during manufacturing or in a restaurant kitchen. Only around 10% comes from what you add yourself, at the stove or at the table.

Which means the intuitive fix, cooking without salt, taking the shaker off the table, addresses a tenth of the problem and makes your food taste worse doing it.

The list is not the one you would guess

The largest sodium contributor to the US diet is bread. Not because a slice is salty, it is about 150 mg, but because of how much of it people eat.

Then: deli meat, pizza, soup, sandwiches, cheese, restaurant chicken.

Some numbers that catch people out:

Canned soup, 1 cup, 700–900 mg
Deli turkey, 2 oz, 500–700 mg
Slice of pizza, 600–800 mg
Cottage cheese, 1 cup, 700 mg
Bagel, 400–500 mg
Restaurant entrée, routinely 1,500–2,500 mg in one dish

One restaurant meal can be a full day's allowance. Cottage cheese, which is health food by reputation, carries about a third of it.

Why this one genuinely needs a tracker

Sodium is invisible in a way calories are not.

You can look at a plate and make a rough guess at its energy. You cannot look at a bowl of soup and tell whether it is 400 mg or 900 mg, the two look identical and taste more similar than the numbers suggest. There is no sensory feedback that tracks the thing you are trying to limit.

Salt you can taste is the tenth you are not trying to cut.

That is the specific case where a number beats intuition. Not because you need to log every day forever, but because a week of tracking sodium tells you which three foods in your normal rotation are carrying it, and after that it is a shopping decision rather than a daily one.

Set it as a cap, and add potassium

Sodium is a ceiling, not a target. It wants a bar that warns you when you cross it, not one that congratulates you for filling it.

And the other half of the story is potassium, which most people are also short of, and which works against sodium's effect on blood pressure. Raising potassium is often easier and more effective than cutting sodium further; that is its own article.

Common questions

What is the daily sodium limit?: The US guideline is less than 2,300 mg a day for adults, about one teaspoon of salt. The American Heart Association suggests an ideal limit of 1,500 mg for most adults, particularly those with high blood pressure. Average US intake is around 3,400 mg.
Where does most dietary sodium come from?: Roughly 70% comes from packaged, processed and restaurant food, added before you ever see it. Only about 10% comes from the salt shaker at the table or in home cooking. The rest occurs naturally in food.
Which foods are highest in sodium?: Bread and rolls are the single largest contributor in the US diet, not because they are salty but because people eat so much of them. Then deli meats, pizza, soup, sandwiches, cheese and restaurant chicken dishes.