Patient Resources

Sodium in food

Foods rich in Sodium:

  • Common salt: 38850 mg. So a “salt pinch” of 2 grams will have 777 mg.
  • Bakery: white farmer’s bread (796 mg), white stick bread (650 mg), biscuit bread (350 mg), raisin bread (489 mg).
  • Biscuits: Cracker-type crunchy biscuit (1100 mg).
  • Pastries: Milk roll (600 mg), Puff pastry mass (470 mg).
  • Breakfast cereals: enriched corn flakes (1023 mg), enriched puffed rice (600 mg), cereals mixed with chocolate (700 mg), To get an idea the cereals that have the lowest sodium content are wheat or oat flakes, both with 4mg / 100g.
  • Milk: condensed (128 mg), UHT milk on the other hand has 45 mg of sodium in 100g of milk.
  • Cheese: Roquefort (1600mg), blue (1375 mg), Portions (1139), Parmesan (913 mg), Camembert 20% M.G (891 mg), Edam (724 mg), Cheddar (700 mg), Fresh Goat (480 mg).
  • Meat: turkey breast without skin grilled (156 mg) is the richest in sodium, while the rabbit is one of the poorest in sodium (37 mg).
  • Raw-cured sausages: cured ham (2340 mg), Chorizo (2300 mg), Salchichón (2100 mg), Salami (1800 mg), smoked Bacon (1760), Mortadela (1000 mg).
  • Fish and fish products: canned anchovies in oil (3930mg), smoked salmon (1800 mg), caviar (1700 mg), surimi (700 mg), sardine canned in oil (450 mg), cod (400 mg), naturally drained canned tuna (320 mg). To get an idea of how much this is with respect to the less sodium-rich fish, let’s last that trout has 55 mg and perch 73 mg of sodium in 100 grams of fish.
  • Fats: Mixed margarine: 800 mg, vegetable margarine (118 mg).
  • Vegetables: Vegetables generally have low sodium concentrations except for canned vegetables; canned white asparagus (300 mg), canned celery (343 mg), canned carrot (310 mg), canned corn (304 mg), pickled gherkins (700 mg). For reference we will say that boiled carrot has 37 mg of sodium naturally in 100 grams.
  • Pulses: canned lentils (360 mg) compared to soaked and boiled dried lentils (3mg).
  • Dried fruits and oilseeds: black olives (3288 mg) and roasted and salted pistachios (650 mg) have high salt concentrations unlike unsalted sunflower seeds (2 mg) or pine nuts (1 mg).
  • Processed sauces or soups: soy (5717 mg), mustard (2245 mg), ketchup (1120 mg), roquefort sauce (933 mg), commercial light mayonnaise (750 mg).
    Precooked and flavouring cubes or bags: Very high concentrations of salt.

(Values over 100gr of food)

Other considerations:

Sodium is necessary for the correct functioning of our organism, it has a very important function in the control of arterial pressure and blood volume, as well as in favouring the correct transmission of the nervous impulse and the contraction of the muscles.
Currently, it is very possible that our food provides more sodium than we need, this is because it is found naturally in most foods and artificially, as an additive added to processed products. A continuous excess of Sodium in our daily diet can lead us to suffer arterial hypertension, cardiovascular diseases and edemas (retention of liquids) among others.
We must learn to identify the sodium found in products under the name: sodium chloride, sodium saccharin, monosodium glutamate, sodium benzoate, sodium bicarbonate.
Sometimes, diuretics are used in order to lose weight without being recommended, as well as sauna or intense exercise in hot weather favouring excessive sweating, this can lead to the alteration of sodium, so that losses must be replaced with isotonic drinks.
We must know that some food production processes (salting, canning, smoking) extraordinarily increase the salt content.