Sodium rich foods play a crucial role in maintaining our body’s fluid balance, nerve function, and muscle contraction. However, finding the right balance of sodium in your diet can be challenging, especially with the prevalence of high-sodium processed foods.
In this article, we’ll explore the importance of sodium, identify foods that are naturally rich in sodium, and provide tips for managing your sodium intake to optimize your health.
Whether you’re looking to enhance your diet with essential minerals or need to regulate your sodium levels for medical reasons, understanding the sources and effects of sodium is vital.
- High Sodium Foods (Per Serving)
- Sodium Rich Foods (Per Calorie)
- Sodium Food Chart
- How Much Sodium Do You Need?
- Sodium Recipes
- Benefits of Sodium
- We Crave Sodium
- Salt and Hydration
- Symptoms of Sodium Deficiency
- Factors That Increase Your Demand for Sodium
- Sodium vs Potassium
- How Much Sodium is Optimal?
- Sodium in the Food System
- Synergistic Nutrients
- How Can I Calculate if I’m Getting Enough (or Too Much) Sodium?
- Explore More Minerals
High Sodium Foods (Per Serving)
If you find yourself falling short of the recommended sodium intake, it’s time to focus on foods that pack in more sodium per serving, like:
- pork steak
- tempeh
- pastrami
- shrimp/prawns
- halloumi
- pickles
- beef jerky
- Canadian bacon
- salami
- chorizo
- prosciutto
- green olives
To help you get started, the infographic below shows the sodium provided by popular foods in the average serving sizes consumed by our Optimisers.
Smoked and cured meats, salted nuts, pickled foods, salty condiments, and salty snacks are among the foods rich in sodium.
Once you’re ready to revitalise your diet with a wider variety of high-sodium foods, download our printable list of foods with more sodium per serving here.
Sodium Rich Foods (Per Calorie)
Once you know you’re getting the minimum amount of sodium your body needs, you can zero in on foods that deliver more sodium per calorie to increase your satiety and nutrient density, like:
- pickles
- sauerkraut
- green olives
- pork steak
- pastrami
- chard
- prosciutto
- shrimp/prawns
- Canadian bacon
- scallops
- salmon
- celery
The infographic below shows popular sodium rich foods that deliver more sodium per calorie.
For more variety, check out our printable list of sodium rich foods per calorie.
Sodium Food Chart
Curious about how your favourite foods stack up in the sodium game? Dive into our dynamic chart showcasing popular foods, comparing sodium content per calorie and serving. For an immersive experience, explore the interactive Tableau version.
How Much Sodium Do You Need?
Our satiety analysis reveals that your body craves at least 3,100 mg of sodium per 2000 calories.
You still need sodium if you’re trying to eat less to lose weight. Restricting sodium and calories simultaneously can make ignoring your cravings for nutrients and energy harder. Hence, we have set an Optimal Nutrient Intake of 5000 mg/2000 calories for sodium to ensure people get enough sodium when consuming fewer calories.
However, foods with more sodium tend to be associated with eating less. When you’ve got enough sodium in your diet, foods with more sodium quickly taste ‘too salty’. Because we have such a strong conscious craving for sodium, most people don’t need to prioritise sodium if they are salting their food to taste.
Sodium Recipes
Elevate your culinary game with our chart, showcasing over 1750 NutriBooster recipes used in our Micros Masterclass. We’ve plotted these recipes based on sodium content versus protein percentage. The further right you go, the more sodium you can enjoy with fewer calories.
Dive into the details with our interactive Tableau chart on your computer. Click on each recipe to uncover the magic behind it and even feast your eyes on mouthwatering pictures!
Benefits of Sodium
Sodium is an essential mineral for human health. Understanding its importance can help you select sodium-rich foods.
- Regulates fluid balance: Sodium is vital in regulating the body’s fluid intake. It helps maintain the balance of fluids between cells and surrounding tissues.
- Maintains blood pressure: Sodium works with other minerals, such as potassium and magnesium, to help regulate blood pressure. Adequate sodium intake can help prevent high blood pressure, a heart disease and stroke risk factor.
- Supports nerve and muscle function: Sodium is necessary for proper nerve and muscle function. It helps transmit nerve impulses and aids in muscle contraction and relaxation.
- Enhances nutrient absorption: Sodium helps the body absorb certain nutrients, such as glucose and amino acids.
- Balances pH levels: Sodium helps balance the pH levels in the body, ensuring that the blood remains at a healthy pH level.
We Crave Sodium
Sodium is one nutrient we have a specific appetite for, so our cravings often lead us towards sodium-rich foods to fulfil our body’s needs.
Sodium is crucial to many physiological processes, and the body cannot store large amounts. Salt is often hard to find away from the ocean in our natural environment, which is likely why we developed a strong conscious appetite for it.
But once we get enough sodium, our cravings for sodium settle down, and sodium-rich foods quickly taste ‘too salty’ because we have had enough sodium. The rate of sodium absorption is governed by the amount of salt already in your body. When we need more sodium, it is absorbed quickly. However, sodium will hang around longer if we already have enough. Therefore, your food will taste “saltier” as more remains unabsorbed on the tongue if you already have enough sodium.
While you will need more sodium if you are active and sweat a lot, most people will benefit by shifting their focus to other electrolytes like potassium, magnesium, and calcium before worrying about sodium.
A study by Tordoff (1992) suggested that our cravings for sodium may increase when we lack other minerals like calcium and potassium. Hence, your salt cravings may reduce if you get enough other minerals.
Salt and Hydration
While most people grab a big glass of water when they’re thirsty, sodium also helps to keep you hydrated.
- Water and minerals work together as conductors to transmit nerve signals from the central nervous system.
- Consuming adequate salt will help you hold onto fluid in your cells. However, consuming too much salt can cause you to hold onto excess water.
- thirst will increase to help you flush excess salt from your body.
- Conversely, consuming too much water can cause you to flush too much sodium from your system.
Athletes like boxers, MMA fighters, and wrestlers trying to ‘make weight’ sometimes manipulate their sodium intake to reduce water retention. However, this is not a sustainable long-term weight loss strategy. A lack of sodium can stimulate your appetite to seek more sodium and prevent fat loss. You also won’t feel great when you’re extremely water and sodium-depleted!
Your adrenal glands upregulate aldosterone to tell your kidneys to hold onto sodium when you’re not consuming enough. The body needs salt to metabolise glucose and regulate insulin levels. So, although minimising salt is often encouraged, avoiding salt can drive insulin resistance.
Symptoms of Sodium Deficiency
Because sodium is so critical to fluid balance, nerve signalling, and energy production, consuming too little of this mineral can cause symptoms like:
- dizziness,
- heat exhaustion,
- low blood pressure,
- rapid pulse,
- loss of appetite,
- water retention,
- irritability,
- muscle cramps,
- muscle weakness,
- confusion,
- nausea,
- vomiting,
- fatigue,
- reduced body weight, or
- headaches.
Factors That Increase Your Demand for Sodium
Sodium demand can be increased or decreased depending on your metabolic demands, the stress your body is under, and if you’re consuming certain products. You may need more sodium if you:
- drink a lot of coffee,
- are suffering from severe vomiting or diarrhea,
- take medications like antidepressants,
- are on a low-carb or ketogenic diet,
- suffer from liver or kidney disease,
- have adrenal imbalances or suffer from Addison’s disease,
- use diuretics,
- Have hypothyroidism,
- drink too much water,
- are very active and sweat a lot,
- consume large amounts of supplemental potassium or
- consume inadequate potassium.
Sodium vs Potassium
The sodium-potassium pump is central to energy production and the movement of energy throughout the body. Potassium depletion also induces sodium retention, which is associated with hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease.
In days gone by, salt was rare and highly valued. We evolved mechanisms for protecting against the threat of low sodium levels, like intense cravings for this mineral, to prompt us to seek it out actively. However, we have not developed similar mechanisms to protect us against low potassium levels because it was plentiful.
Our Palaeolithic hunter-gatherer ancestors are thought to have consumed about 11,000 milligrams (mg) of potassium daily from fruits, vegetables, leaves, flowers, roots, and other plant sources. At the same time, we were estimated to have consumed less than 700 mg of sodium. Our potassium:sodium ratio could have been as high as 10:1!
While we crave salt, it could be a stop-gap measure when our body wants more potassium. When we get enough potassium, we require less sodium.
Our analysis shows that foods with more sodium correlate with a 22% reduction in food intake. In contrast, foods and meals with more potassium align with a massive 30% reduction in food intake! The chart below shows that increasing your potassium:sodium ratio aligns with a much lower overall energy intake.
If you are active, you need at least as much potassium as sodium (i.e., a 1:1 potassium:sodium ratio). However, if you are relatively sedentary, you should aim to consume twice as much potassium as sodium (i.e., a 2:1 potassium:sodium ratio).
Most people need to chase more potassium before they worry about supplementing large amounts of sodium.
Potassium seems more important for most people because they are likely not getting enough from a conventional diet. On the other hand, most people get a substantial amount of sodium if they consume a highly processed diet. This is because large amounts of sodium (e.g., sodium chloride or table salt) are often added to processed foods, fast foods, and certain beverages to increase their palatability, driving people to eat more.
How Much Sodium is Optimal?
In the past, the official recommendation has been to consume less than 1 g per day of sodium due to concerns for hypertension from excessive sodium intake. However, the Australian target intake (not minimum) was raised to 2 g per day for adults in 2017. So, it seems that the risk of high sodium may be due to the low potassium:sodium ratio rather than high sodium itself.
No upper limit is set for sodium, given that the requirements are individualised. However, consuming too much sodium is, in some ways, self-limiting. Consuming too much sodium on an empty stomach can quickly give you a ‘dose of the salts’ and leave you running to the toilet while downing water to clear excess salt.
The charts below from the PURE study indicate that consuming more than 4 g of sodium is ideal for improving one’s risk of cardiovascular events or death from any cause.
A recent study (Sodium intake, life expectancy, and all-cause mortality) had similar findings, with higher sodium intakes aligning with better outcomes in terms of life expectancy and your risk of dying from any cause.
Based on our satiety analysis, we have set a target sodium intake of 4.0 g/2000 calories. However, ideally, you should focus on getting more potassium than sodium before jumping to these higher sodium intakes. For more details, see:
Sodium in the Food System
The chart below shows that dietary sodium has decreased in the food system since the 1960s. We now need to consume 58% more food to get the same amount of sodium that we did in the past.
Synergistic Nutrients
Sodium works synergistically with vitamins B6 and D, bicarbonate, calcium, magnesium, phosphate, and potassium. For this reason, we recommend consuming nutrient-dense foods that are naturally rich in sodium to ensure you get foods with a complete nutrient profile so sodium can do its job properly.
How Can I Calculate if I’m Getting Enough (or Too Much) Sodium?
Curious about your sodium intake? Take our Free 7-Day Nutrient Clarity Challenge and discover if you’re hitting the sodium sweet spot in your diet.
After just one week of tracking your daily meals with Cronometer, Nutrient Optimiser will unveil a personalised roadmap, your guide to a healthier, more nutrient-rich lifestyle.
You’ll receive a curated list of foods and tantalising NutriBooster recipes that not only fill your magnesium gaps but also ensure you’re not missing out on critical nutrients.
Ready to unlock your nutrient potential? Join the challenge and journey towards a brighter, healthier you!
Nutrient Density Starter Pack
Ready to supercharge your nutrition? Get our Nutrient Density Starter Pack – your all-access pass to a healthier, more vibrant you!
In our quest to make Nutritional Optimization a breeze, we’re thrilled to offer you this treasure trove of tools and resources when you join our vibrant Optimising Nutrition Community:
- Food Lists: Discover our carefully crafted lists optimised for each essential nutrient, tailored to your goals, preferences, and unique conditions.
- The Healthiest Meal Plan in the World: Peek into a week of mouthwatering, nutrient-dense meals that’ll leave you satisfied and energised.
- Recipes: Download delectable samples from our NutriBooster recipe books, designed to elevate your nutrition while tantalising your taste buds.
- 7-Day Nutrient Clarity Challenge: Unearth your priority nutrients and pinpoint the foods and meals that pack a nutrient punch so you can kickstart your journey to better health.
Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to transform your nutrition effortlessly. Join our community and unlock your path to a healthier, more vibrant you!