Sodium and salt are different numbers
Table salt is sodium chloride, and sodium accounts for about 39.3 percent of its mass. One gram of salt therefore contains roughly 393 mg of sodium, and going the other way, 1,000 mg of sodium is about 2.54 g of salt. Nutrition Facts panels in the United States report sodium in milligrams; recipes, dietary advice from outside the US and most conversation about the subject use salt in grams. Mixing the two scales produces an error of two and a half times, which is why the result on this page prints both.
A useful anchor: a level teaspoon of table salt weighs about 6 g and carries roughly 2,300 mg of sodium. That is the whole of the Dietary Guidelines daily limit in a single teaspoon, which is why the shaker feels like it should be the main lever and mostly is not.
Where the sodium actually comes from
Surveys of American diets consistently find that the large majority of sodium intake is already in food when it is bought or served — in bread, cured meat, cheese, canned goods, sauces, restaurant meals and packaged products — rather than added during cooking or at the table. Bread is a good illustration: no slice tastes salty, and two slices carry around 300 mg. Nothing on a deli sandwich is obviously the culprit, and the sandwich lands near 1,500.
Soups and broths are the other end of the pattern, where a single item can carry an entire day's figure and most of it is in the liquid. That is why this page tracks a broth fraction separately: it is one of the few reductions available that does not require changing what you order. Draining and rinsing canned beans and vegetables is another, removing a meaningful share with no effect on the dish.
What the three published figures mean
| Figure | Per day | As salt | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| WHO recommendation | 2,000 mg | 5.1 g | A global public-health target for adults |
| US Dietary Guidelines limit | 2,300 mg | 5.8 g | An upper limit for adults, not a goal to hit |
| AHA ideal figure | 1,500 mg | 3.8 g | A lower figure described as ideal for most adults |
All three are statements about populations. They come from bodies weighing average blood pressure effects across large groups, and they differ from each other because those bodies weighed the evidence differently. None of them is a prescription for an individual. Average American intake is reported in the region of 3,400 mg, so most people comparing a day against any of these rows will find themselves above it, and that comparison is context rather than a finding.
The limits of counting this way
Every figure in the table is an approximation for a category, and real dishes vary by a factor of two or more depending on the kitchen and the brand. Portion sizes vary further. Anything with a Nutrition Facts panel has a better number printed on it, and serving sizes on those panels are frequently smaller than what people actually eat from the container — a fact worth checking before trusting a low-looking figure.
There is also a direction of error that matters. Restaurant meals, where the sodium is invisible and unlabelled, are systematically the hardest to estimate and systematically high. If a day looks unexpectedly moderate and included two meals out, the estimate is probably low rather than the day being unusual.
And a day is a day. Intake varies enormously between days, and what any of this means is a question about habitual intake over weeks, in a person whose blood pressure, kidney function and medications are known. That question belongs with a clinician or a dietitian. If blood pressure is the reason for the interest, the blood pressure category calculator covers what a reading does and does not tell you.
Questions people ask
How do I convert sodium to salt?
Multiply the sodium in milligrams by 2.542 and divide by 1,000 to get grams of salt. So 2,300 mg of sodium is about 5.8 g of salt, roughly a level teaspoon. Going the other way, multiply grams of salt by 393 to get milligrams of sodium. The factor comes from the molar masses: sodium is about 39.3 percent of sodium chloride by mass. Getting the direction wrong is a common error and produces a figure two and a half times off, which is why the result on this page shows both numbers side by side rather than making you pick one.
Does leaving the broth really make that much difference?
For soup-based dishes, yes, because that is where most of the sodium is dissolved. A restaurant noodle soup bowl can carry 2,000 mg with well over half of it in the liquid, so leaving most of the broth removes more than any other single change you could make to that meal. The fractions used here are approximations, and they vary with how salty the broth is and how much of it there is relative to the solids. The principle is reliable even where the specific number is not.
Is less sodium always better?
No, and the page deliberately does not say so. Sodium is an essential electrolyte, very low intakes are not established as beneficial for everyone, and people losing large amounts through sweat in hot work or long endurance exercise can run into problems with restriction rather than excess. There are also conditions and medications where the right amount is set carefully in both directions. The published figures are upper limits for general populations, not targets to beat. If there is a medical reason to be managing sodium, the number should come from a clinician or a registered dietitian who knows the case.
Why is my total so high when I never add salt?
Because added salt is the small fraction. Most sodium in an American diet is already in the food at the point of purchase: bread, cheese, cured and processed meat, canned goods, sauces, condiments, and above all restaurant and takeout meals, where portions are large and nothing is labelled. None of it needs to taste salty to be substantial. That is the reason for adding up meals rather than thinking about the shaker, and it is why the biggest available reductions are usually about what is eaten rather than what is sprinkled on it.