Daily Sodium Intake Calculator

How this is calculated

⚠️ SODIUM AND SALT ARE DIFFERENT NUMBERS AND THIS IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE TOOL. Table salt is sodium chloride, and only about 40% of its mass is sodium. So 5 grams of salt contains roughly 2,000 milligrams of sodium - WHO use exactly that pairing, and this tool uses the same 2.5 multiplier to stay consistent with them. Reading a salt figure as though it were sodium, or the reverse, is a two-and-a-half-fold error in either direction. Labels are no help: some countries list sodium in milligrams and others list salt in grams, and plenty of people compare one against a guideline written in the other. THE WHO RECOMMENDATION FOR ADULTS IS LESS THAN 2,000 mg OF SODIUM A DAY - equivalent to less than 5 g of salt, which they describe as just under a teaspoon. For children aged 2 to 15, WHO recommend adjusting the adult figure downward based on their lower energy requirements rather than applying the adult number. ⚠️ MOST PEOPLE ARE NOWHERE NEAR IT. The global mean adult intake was 4,278 mg of sodium a day in 2021 - equivalent to about 11 g of salt, more than twice the recommendation. If your total looks alarming against the guideline, it is worth knowing that it is probably unremarkable against the population, which is the actual scale of the problem. WHAT IT IS LINKED TO: raised blood pressure, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, and also gastric cancer, obesity, osteoporosis, Meniere's disease and kidney disease. WHO estimate 1.7 million deaths a year were associated with excess sodium in 2023. ⚠️ THE SALT CELLAR IS NOT WHERE MOST OF IT COMES FROM, WHICH IS WHY TOTALLING A DAY IS WORTH DOING. In most diets the majority arrives already inside processed and packaged food - bread, sauces, cured meats, cheese, ready meals, soups and snacks - rather than from anything you add at the table. That is also why a total built from labels is more informative than an impression, and why cutting back is mostly about what you buy rather than about willpower with a shaker. THIS IS A TALLY, NOT AN ASSESSMENT. It adds up what you tell it. It does not know your blood pressure, your kidney function, your medication or what your clinician has advised, and some people are given targets very different from the general recommendation in both directions. If sodium matters to your health specifically, the number that applies to you comes from your clinician rather than from a guideline written for populations.

Common questions

Why are sodium and salt different numbers?

Because table salt is sodium chloride, and only about 40% of its mass is the sodium. So 5 grams of salt contains roughly 2,000 milligrams of sodium - which is exactly the pairing WHO use, and the 2.5 multiplier this tool uses to stay consistent with them. Reading one as the other is a two-and-a-half-fold error in whichever direction you make it. What makes this genuinely easy to get wrong is that labels are inconsistent: some countries list sodium in milligrams, others list salt in grams, and a guideline written in one unit gets compared against a label written in the other.

What is the recommended limit?

WHO recommend adults consume less than 2,000 mg of sodium a day, equivalent to less than 5 g of salt - which they describe as just under a teaspoon. For children aged 2 to 15 the advice is to adjust that adult figure downward in line with their lower energy requirements, rather than applying the adult number directly. The limit is an input here rather than fixed, because some people are given a different target by a clinician, and that figure should override any general recommendation.

Is my intake unusual?

Almost certainly not, and that context is worth having. The global mean adult intake was 4,278 mg of sodium a day in 2021 - about 11 g of salt, more than twice the WHO recommendation. So a total that looks alarming against the guideline is often quite ordinary against the population. That is not a reason to relax about it; it is the actual scale of the problem, and it is why the tool shows your figure against both the limit and the average rather than only against the target.

Why does excess sodium matter?

The best established link is raised blood pressure, which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease. WHO also list associations with gastric cancer, obesity, osteoporosis, Meniere's disease and kidney disease, and estimate that 1.7 million deaths a year were associated with consuming too much sodium in 2023. Blood pressure is the mechanism that connects most of it, which is why sodium comes up so often in cardiovascular advice and why people already managing blood pressure are usually given a specific target rather than a general one.

Isn't most of it from the salt cellar?

No, and this is the most useful thing to know if you want to reduce it. In most diets the majority of sodium arrives already inside processed and packaged food - bread, sauces, cured meats, cheese, ready meals, soups and snacks - rather than from anything added at the table. The tool reports what share came from salt you added yourself for exactly that reason, and it is usually a small fraction. Which means cutting back is mostly a question of what you buy rather than willpower with a shaker, and reading labels achieves far more than moving the cellar.

How accurate is adding up labels?

Good enough to be useful and not precise. Portion sizes are estimates unless you weigh things, restaurant and takeaway food rarely carries a label at all, and label figures are themselves per-serving values with their own tolerances. What a day's tally is genuinely good for is showing you the SHAPE of your intake - which items dominate, and whether you are near the guideline or several times it. That is a different question from knowing your intake to the milligram, and it is the one worth answering.

Does everyone need to reduce it?

No, and this is a tally rather than an assessment. It adds up what you tell it and knows nothing about your blood pressure, kidney function, medication or what a clinician has advised - and targets vary in both directions. Some people are given a considerably lower limit for a specific condition; some, in particular circumstances involving certain medications or heavy sweating, are advised not to restrict sodium at all. If sodium matters to your health specifically, the number that applies to you comes from your clinician rather than from a guideline written for populations.

Take it further with AI

Copy this into ChatGPT or Claude with your own numbers filled in. It hands over the figures this calculator worked out, so the answer is built on real arithmetic instead of a guess.

I used the Daily Sodium Intake Calculator at https://www.bfcbrilliance.com/tools/daily-sodium-intake-calculator.

What I entered:
- Sodium from labels that list SODIUM (mg): ___
- Salt from labels that list SALT (g): ___
- Salt you added yourself (tsp): ___
- The limit you are working to (mg): ___

What it calculated:
- Your day's sodium: ___
- The same day, expressed as salt: ___
- Share of your limit: ___
- Over the limit by: ___
- Against the global average (4,278 mg): ___

Use those figures as given — they are already worked out, so please don't recalculate or estimate your own. Help me turn them into a plan: what to buy or do, in what order, roughly what it should cost, and the mistakes people most often make with this job.

Keep this general and do not give medical advice — where it matters, tell me what to raise with a clinician.

More nutrition tools