Eating less salt: where is it hiding and how do you cut back?

General information, not medical advice.

According to the Nutrition Information Center (NICE), many people are not very aware of how much salt they eat. Belgium’s Superior Health Council (SHC) estimates that 70 to 80 percent of the salt we eat every day is already in the food we buy. Only about a quarter comes from salt we add ourselves while cooking or at the table.

How much salt per day?

In its 2025 dietary recommendations, the SHC advises limiting salt in all its forms to a maximum of 5 grams a day. The World Health Organization (WHO) uses the same limit: less than 5 grams of salt or 2000 mg of sodium, just under a teaspoon. In Belgium, intake is higher. In the 2018 National Health Survey, the salt intake of 1120 adults was estimated at 8.3 to 9.4 grams a day, the SHC reports. Fewer than 5 percent of participants stayed below 5 grams.

Why this limit? According to the WHO, the main effect of too much sodium is higher blood pressure, which raises the risk of cardiovascular disease. NICE adds that too much salt can also affect kidney function and lead to more calcium being lost in the urine. If you also eat too little calcium, that can increase the risk of kidney stones and osteoporosis.

Where the salt is

NICE gives these guide values:

• Fresh vegetables, fruit, unsalted nuts, and potatoes, rice, pasta, oats and pulses cooked without salt usually contain less than 20 mg of sodium per 100 grams.
• Fresh meat and fresh fish contain on average no more than 100 mg of sodium per 100 grams. A boiled egg, a handy quick source of protein, contains about 90 mg.
• Bread contains about 500 mg of sodium per 100 grams, or about 1.25 grams of salt. A hundred grams of bread is about three slices.
• A 10-gram stock cube contains about 5 grams of salt, already the maximum for a whole day.

The SHC names bread, processed meats, cheese, sauces and soups as the main sources of salt. For cheese and processed meats, the content can rise sharply depending on the type, NICE notes. The Flemish Institute for Healthy Living (Vlaams Instituut Gezond Leven) counts salt, salt-based stock, processed meat and salty sauces such as mustard and ketchup among the products best eaten as little as possible.

Reading the label

The packaging shows the salt content per 100 grams or per 100 millilitres. If only sodium is listed, divide that number by 0.4. According to NICE, 1 gram of salt corresponds to 0.4 grams of sodium. Compare cheeses or sandwich fillings per 100 grams, so you can set their salt content side by side fairly.

Cooking with less salt

NICE suggests a few manageable steps for cooking with less salt at home:

• Leave the salt off the table and add less while cooking. It takes some getting used to at first, but your taste buds adjust within a few weeks.
• Add flavour with fresh herbs, garlic, onion, lemon, pepper or spices such as cumin and ginger.
• Choose reduced-salt stock cubes and use fewer than the packaging suggests, for example one cube per litre instead of two. If you make your own stock, for instance for a bowl of vegetable soup, you can leave out the salt and add herbs of your choice.
• Salt is usually added to canned food, such as canned chickpeas, so check the label. Unprepared frozen products, such as plain frozen vegetables without sauce, contain no added salt.

Salt substitutes and sea salt

According to NICE, table salt with less sodium and more potassium or magnesium can be a solution, but it is not suitable for people with poor kidney function or for those taking certain medicines. The WHO recommends that if you use salt, you replace regular table salt with a lower-sodium salt that contains potassium, and that you only use iodised salt. Sea salt, iodised salt, coarse salt, rock salt, celery salt and flavoured salt contain about as much sodium as regular table salt. So you choose iodised salt for the iodine, not to get less sodium.

When to see a doctor

The SHC recommendations apply to the general, healthy population. If you have high blood pressure or kidney disease, take medicines or want to use a salt substitute, ask your GP or a dietitian how much salt and which salt suits you.

Sources

• Superior Health Council (Hoge Gezondheidsraad). Voedingsaanbevelingen voor de Belgische bevolking – 2025 (Dietary recommendations for the Belgian population). Advisory report no. 9805-9807, 2025.
• Nutrition Information Center (NICE). Tips om minder zout te eten. nice-info.be, 2021, last updated 22 April 2024.
• World Health Organization. Sodium reduction. Fact sheet, 11 May 2026.
• Vlaams Instituut Gezond Leven. Voeding buiten de voedingsdriehoek. gezondleven.be, no publication date given, accessed 14 October 2026.