Salt (sodium chloride) can be harmful for some people if used to excess. Most Americans eat more than enough salt, up to 20 or 30 times the amount necessary to replace the daily loss of 0.2 grams. One teaspoonful of salt contains 2.3 grams of sodium. The only reason we ingest all this extra salt is because our taste buds are used to it.

Excessive salt in the diet can lead to high blood pressure, or hypertension, in salt-sensitive people. Hypertension is a disease with no noticeable symptoms until serious damage may have occurred. It can eventually lead to kidney damage, stroke, or heart disease. If you have been told your blood pressure is elevated, avoid adding salt to your food. There is plenty of salt in a balanced diet, even for someone who is exercising heavily.

Here are some hints to gradually decrease your use of salt:

1. Do not add salt while cooking, and remove the saltshaker from the table.
2. Use other seasonings such as pepper and other spices, herbs, garlic, onion, lemon, lime, and horseradish.
3. Limit your consumption of prepared foods (for example, canned soups and frozen TV dinners) that contain the following sodium additives: sodium benzoate, monosodium glutamate (MSG), and disodium phosphate.
4. Choose low-salt foods in the market, and ask for low-salt soy sauce or food without MSG in restaurants.
5. Lower your consumption of fast-food pizza, hamburgers, and fries. All are high in salt content.
6. Limit seasonings high in salt, such as relish, mustard, soy sauce, catsup, steak sauce, meat tenderizers, and MSG.
7. Avoid highly salted snacks like potato chips, pickles, pretzels, and corn chips, and snack on popcorn sprinkled with Parmesan cheese instead of salt.

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