Salt-O-Meter -- Are you getting too much salt?

[okarol]

A bowl of Cheerios and a grilled cheese sandwich are all it takes to exceed your daily recommended sodium intake. Use our salt-o-meter to see just how quickly it adds up:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/special-reports/hard-to-shake/salt-o-meter/article1187915/

[jbeany]

Oh, that's just darn scary!  Processed food is gonna kill us all in the end. . .

[RichardMEL]

Funny my sodium is always around the same number when I do labs.

I figure it's like this. I know salt/sodium makes you more thirsty and retain some fluid. Check.. but at the same time I want to ENJOY as much of life as possible... I try to strike a balance between having a bit of salt (but NEVER adding it to stuff!) and knowing it is not so good, vs. being a sodium monk. Given there's salt in most everything you eat anyway my mantra is don't add it to anything(it's there anyway) and if I have something a little salty for one meal, then go the other way for the next - to try and balance it out.

Yep processed foods are high in salt, and phosphate and the like... but I still eat some.

[cariad]

I was kept on a low-salt diet even after my transplant. I can still remember the limit was 99mg of salt, though I don't know if this came from the doctors or my parents randomly picking a number out of the air. It left me with a lifelong craving for salt, and I doubt did me one drop of good. When I asked my nephrologist - the one I liked - in CA about salt, he told me to just keep my intake under 3g. That is apparently more than the maximum an adult should consume? 

I don't limit my salt intake at all. This article claims there are risks to a low-salt diet, including depression. For me, I believe that is absolutely true. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/07/science/07tier.html?_r=2&fta=y

[KarenInWA]

I'm Pre-D, and have such a strong hatred for the kidney diet, that I strongly believe if I follow it, I will die of starvation and/or malnourishment before my kidneys will even fail.  I am 36, and by my own estimations, I believe my kidneys will fail by the time I turn 40. You do the math!  I hope I'm wrong on my estimation, but time will tell.