Sodium tools and practical guidance

Understand the sodium in your food

Avoid Salt provides simple tools for calculating sodium from food labels, serving sizes and meals. You can track what you eat, compare foods and understand how sodium adds up during the day.

Sodium is an essential mineral, so the goal is not to eliminate it completely. General public-health references can put food-label numbers in context, but they are not personal medical targets.

Track a day of sodium View all calculators

Start with the number on the label

Most tools begin with information you already have: sodium per serving, serving size and the amount you actually ate.

Sodium Day TrackerAdd foods through the day and see the running sodium total.Meal Sodium CalculatorTotal several foods and identify the largest contributors.Nutrition Label CalculatorCalculate sodium for the servings you actually eat.Sodium Per Serving CalculatorMultiply label sodium by servings consumed.Sodium Percentage CalculatorConvert between milligrams and a reference percentage.Sodium to Salt ConverterConvert sodium to an equivalent amount of sodium chloride.

Salt and sodium are related, but different

Table salt is sodium chloride. Nutrition Facts labels list sodium because sodium can come from salt and other sodium-containing ingredients.

Read the sodium and salt explanation

Most sodium is easy to miss

CDC guidance notes that most sodium consumed in the United States comes from packaged and restaurant foods rather than only from salt added at the table.

See where sodium comes from