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Too much salt increases blood pressure. Conversely, blood pressure drops to half when the salt intake from 12 to 6 g per day.

But the excess salt also promotes:

- Left ventricular hypertrophy (another risk factor for cardiovascular disease).

- Overweight and obesity (Opens salt appetite).

- Osteoporosis in postmenopausal women (salt increases calcium loss).

- Cancer of the stomach (the salt increases the risk by 6).

80% of salt consumed is unknown to us!

Reduce the amount of salt we eat is not as easy as it seems because of hidden salt. In fact, 20% of the salt we eat is "visible", that is to say that we add it to our plate or when we cook. The remaining 80% are called "hidden" because they come from food the food industry. We do not generally aware of absorbing as much salt by eating such as crackers, bread, cakes, noodles, pickles, etc..

Thus the French consume on average two times too much salt.

Our total contributions (salt + salt hidden visible) should not exceed 5-6 g daily.

Reduce the hidden salt

We have three strategies to reduce our salt intake hidden.

1) Reduce the high salt foods: meats and sausages, smoked meats and fish, olives, capers and pickles, crackers, cheeses, etc..

2) Read labels to find the sodium in the lowest for a given food (bread, ready meals, soup, pizza, vegetable juice, cakes, cookies ... Beware, some mineral water (Vals, Vichy Badoit ...) contain salt. You must read the same labels bottled water!

3) Buy staples (fruits, vegetables, flour, etc..) And prepare your own meals. In this way, it's you control the amount of salt.