What Is the Difference Between Salt & Sodium?

Table salt contains sodium and chloride.

Table salt contains sodium and chloride.

The American Heart Association and the Dietary Guidelines for Americans urge all Americans to limit their consumption of sodium to keep their heart and blood vessels healthy. You may think this means you only have to cut down on the amount of salt you eat, but sodium and salt are not the same thing. Yes, most of the sodium in your diet comes from ordinary table salt, but not all salts contain sodium and sodium can come from a variety of other sources.

What Is Sodium?

Sodium is a mineral. Scientists classify sodium as an electrolyte because it carries an electric charge. Sodium works with other electrolyte minerals, like potassium, magnesium and calcium, to balance the water levels in cells, stimulate nerve impulses and initiate muscle contractions. Sodium plays a vital role in regulating heart muscle contractions and controlling blood volume, making it important to the overall health of your cardiovascular system.

What Is Salt?

Salt is a chemical compound formed when a mineral, also called an element, bonds with chloride, another mineral. Sodium chloride, the most common salt, occurs naturally and is found in sea water and underground salt deposits. Salt forms as tiny crystals. Different types of salt have different crystal sizes. Rock salt, for instance, has large discrete crystals while common table salt exists as fine crystals. Laboratories produce other kinds of salts, known as salt substitutes, including potassium chloride and calcium chloride.

The Sodium in Salt

Salt contains 40 percent sodium and 60 percent chloride, which means each teaspoon of salt provides 2,000 milligrams of sodium. Americans consume about 3,400 milligrams of sodium per day, mostly in the form of salt. This amount represents far more than the tolerable upper limit set as 2,300 milligrams per day by the Institute of Medicine and more than twice the recommended intake of 1,500 milligrams per day.

Other Sodium Sources

Reducing your sodium intake takes more than just removing the salt shaker from the table, because most of the sodium in the average person’s diet comes from processed and packaged foods. When choosing these foods, take control of your sodium intake by reading the ingredient label. In addition to salt, sources of sodium include monosodium glutamate, MSG; sodium citrate; sodium nitrate; baking soda; sodium bicarbonate; and sodium benzoate.

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