Q. What level of sodium should I look for on a food label?

A.  Salt chemically is sodium chloride and it's the sodium part that matters.  The recommended intake for adults falls between 920 to 2300 milligrams (mg) sodium a day, although the body needs much less than this to survive.

Round it off to 2000 mg and that’s a handy even number as a day's total to remember when looking at labels. Note however that the average Australian consumes more than double this so we’re overdoing the sodium!

You can work out roughly how much sodium you're eating by totalling your intake from what's on food labels. A slice of bread has 130 mg, a slice of ham has 400 mg, a 50 g snack pack of crisps 450 mg and so on. 

Vegetables, fruits, oats, milk, meat and fish have LOW amounts, say less than 20 mg per serve.

Where to look

Use the Per 100 g or Per 100 mL column on the right hand side of the Nutrition Panel to check how much sodium is present. Use these cut-off figures:

• Foods moderate in sodium    less than 400 mg per 100 grams
• Foods moderately-high         400 to 600 mg per 100 grams
• Foods high                                 over 600 mg per 100 grams

By law, any product labelled 'low salt' or 'low sodium' - such as the low sodium vegetable juice pictured - must have no more than 120 mg sodium per 100 grams.