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What is sodium, and how is it different from salt?

Sodium is one of the two minerals in table salt, which is sodium chloride. MedlinePlus says the Dietary Guidelines recommend that most adults eat less than 2.3 grams of sodium a day, which equals about 1 teaspoon of table salt.

Action level No action usually needed

Why you are seeing it
It is on every Nutrition Facts label in milligrams, and it is the word used in advice about salt.
Why it matters
Salt and sodium are easy to confuse, and the label gives sodium, so converting shows how much salt a number represents.
What should I do?
  • Read the sodium line and the serving size on the label.
  • Use the Sodium and Salt Converter to see the salt a sodium amount is in.
  • Ask a doctor about your own needs if you have a condition that makes sodium matter.
A common misunderstanding
Sodium and salt are not the same number: a gram of sodium sits in about 2.5 grams of salt.

Two minerals in one salt

Table salt is sodium chloride: sodium joined to chlorine. Food labels list sodium, not salt, so the two numbers are different even when they describe the same food.

Because chloride has weight too, salt weighs about 2.54 times as much as the sodium in it (58.44 / 22.99, from the atomic weights).

A simple example

From sodium to salt

2,300 mg of sodium x 2.54 = about 5,847 mg of salt, which is 5.8 grams.

That is the same amount MedlinePlus puts at about a teaspoon of table salt.

A food with 600 mg of sodium holds about 1,525 mg of salt.

The figure MedlinePlus gives

MedlinePlus says the Dietary Guidelines recommend that most adults eat less than 2.3 grams of sodium a day, which equals about 1 teaspoon of table salt a day. The page describes this as guidance for most adults, so it is not a personal limit.

Courtesy of MedlinePlus from the National Library of Medicine.

Try these tools

  • Sodium and Salt ConverterConvert between sodium and salt (sodium chloride) in milligrams or grams. They are not the same measurement.
  • Daily Value CalculatorTurn an amount of a nutrient into a percent of its FDA Daily Value, with the FDA rule for low and high.

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