Limiting salt in your diet is important
Reducing salt in your diet can help decrease ascites (fluid around your middle) and oedema (fluid in body tissues, for example swollen feet, legs or ankles). A high salt diet encourages more fluid to be drawn into these areas.
How much salt?
We recommend a no added salt diet. This is defined as less than 6 grams of salt per day.
Where does salt come from in my normal diet?
- 10% is present naturally in foods
- 20% is that added to foods during cooking or at the table
- 70% is present in processed or convenience foods, for example tinned foods, ready meals and savoury snacks
How can you reduce your salt intake?
- Avoid adding salt to your food at the table.
- Avoid, or minimise, salt use during cooking. Try an alternative flavouring to salt, for example black pepper, herbs, garlic, spices, onion, vinegar or lemon juice (see table below).
- Avoid high salt foods (see table below).
- Avoid salt substitutes such as Lo salt, Suolo or Saxa So Low.
Reading food labels – how much is a lot and how much is a little?
- The salt content of a product is found on the food label under ‘nutritional content’.
- Always look at the salt content per 100g of the product.
- Sometimes, salt will appear on the product labels as 'sodium'. If this is the case you must multiply the sodium value by 2.5 to get the salt content.
| High/ 100g | Medium/ 100g | Low/ 100g | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Salt | High/ 100g 1.5g (or more) | Medium/ 100g 0.3-1.5g | Low/ 100g 0.3g (or less) |
| Sodium | High/ 100g 0.6g (or more) | Medium/ 100g 0.1-0.6g | Low/ 100g 0.1g (or less) |
If you find this confusing, you are in a rush or the print on the label is too small, looking at the labelling on the front of the package can be useful. This is often displayed as a wheel or a ‘traffic light’, and contains information on fat, sugar and salt per serving.
You need to look at salt only:
- red indicates a high salt content
- amber indicates a medium salt content
- green indicates a low salt content
You should aim to make most of your foods up with low to medium salt containing foods.
Not all food companies and supermarkets use the traffic light system, but most display key nutritional information on the front of the packet.
Aim for the lower salt products, and look for No-Added Salt or Reduced-Salt versions.
| Type of food | Have less of these foods | Lower salt alternatives |
|---|---|---|
| Tinned foods | Have less of these foods Baked beans, some tinned soups*, tinned fish. | Lower salt alternatives Homemade soups, fresh or frozen or tinned vegetables.* |
| Dried packet foods | Have less of these foods Packet foods, eg cup-a-soup, pot noodles, mug shots, sauce mixes, casserole mixes, stock cubes | Lower salt alternatives Homemade soup or sauces – using a small amount of stock or tinned tomatoes and flavoured with garlic or herbs. |
|
Savoury snacks |
Have less of these foods Crisps, salted nuts, salted popcorn, salted savoury biscuits such as Ritz and Tuc. | Lower salt alternatives Unsalted nuts or crisps such as salt n shake crisps (without adding the salt packet), cream crackers, water biscuits. |
|
Pre-prepared ready meals |
Have less of these foods Chilled frozen or microwave meals, takeaways. | Lower salt alternatives * |
| Flavourings | Have less of these foods Stock cubes, celery salt, garlic salt, horseradish, onion salt, soy sauce, Worcester sauce, Marmite, Bovril, Oxo, pickles, chutney. | Lower salt alternatives Herbs (eg parsley, basil, rosemary, bay leaf, mixed herbs) and spices (eg turmeric, cardamom, cayenne pepper, all spice etc), unsalted butter, black pepper, onion, garlic, chives, mustard, vinegars, fruit eg lemon/ apples/ oranges. |
| Meat |
Have less of these foods
Processed beef burgers, corned beef, luncheon meat, salami, meat paste, paté, tongue, bacon, ham and sausages, smoked meats. |
Lower salt alternatives Fresh beef, lamb, pork, chicken, turkey. |
| Fish | Have less of these foods Prawns, mussels, cockles, fish paste, dried fish, salt fish, smoked fish (eg kippers, yellow haddock, smoked salmon). | Lower salt alternatives White fish (eg plaice, cod, haddock), unsmoked oily fish (eg salmon filets). |
| Cheese | Have less of these foods Feta, processed cheese slices, Danish blue, Stilton, Roquefort, halloumi. | Lower salt alternatives Cream cheese, cottage cheese, mozzarella, brie. No more than 50g/2oz a day of other cheese such as Cheddar, Edam. |
* Compare food labels and pick lowest salt options.
We are smoke-free
Smoking is not allowed anywhere on the hospital campus. For advice and support in quitting, contact your GP or the free NHS stop smoking helpline on 0800 169 0 169.
Other formats
Help accessing this information in other formats is available. To find out more about the services we provide, please visit our patient information help page (see link below) or telephone 01223 256998. www.cuh.nhs.uk/contact-us/accessible-information/
Contact us
Cambridge University Hospitals
NHS Foundation Trust
Hills Road, Cambridge
CB2 0QQ
Telephone +44 (0)1223 245151
https://www.cuh.nhs.uk/contact-us/contact-enquiries/