How to use the daily sodium tracker
- List each food or drink in the table. Enter the servings you had and the sodium per serving in milligrams from its label.
- Add rows with Add a food. Blank rows are ignored.
- Optionally enter your daily target in milligrams, taken from your clinician or a figure you chose.
- Read the total sodium and its salt equivalent, then see which foods contributed most. Copy, Print or export the CSV.
Formula
food sodium = servings x sodium per serving (mg)
total sodium = sum of every food
salt equivalent in g = total sodium in mg x 2.542 / 1000
Table salt is sodium chloride, which weighs about 2.542 times its sodium (58.44 divided by 22.99, from atomic masses). A target comparison subtracts the total from the target you enter.
Four example foods
The starting rows are examples with made-up amounts: cereal with milk 220 mg, a sandwich 780 mg, 1.5 servings of canned soup at 640 mg (960 mg) and 2 servings of crackers at 150 mg (300 mg). The total is 220 + 780 + 960 + 300 = 2,260 mg.
That sodium equals 2,260 x 2.542 / 1000 = 5.75 grams of table salt. Against a target of 2,000 mg, the total is 260 mg over, or 113% of the target. The soup is 42.5% of the day by itself.
Reading labels
Labels list sodium per serving, and the serving is often smaller than what people eat. Check the serving size and multiply by how much you had. Restaurant and packaged foods can list a salt amount instead of sodium; salt in grams times about 0.393 gives sodium in grams.
Sauces, bread, cured meats and soups can add up faster than the salt shaker, so list them too. Rows that show the biggest share are the quickest place to look for changes.
No target is built in
Sodium targets differ by person, health condition and advice from a clinician, and published guidance changes over time. The page does not choose a target for you or say whether a total is good or bad. If you have a target, type it in and the page does the subtraction.
Other tools that help with eating plans include the water intake calculator, the protein intake calculator and the smoothie calorie calculator. This page is general information, not medical or nutrition advice.
Assumptions and limits
- The amounts are the numbers you type. The page does not look up foods or check label accuracy.
- Servings must be more than zero and sodium per serving is in milligrams, from 0 to 1,000,000.
- The salt equivalent uses the atomic masses of sodium and chlorine and assumes the sodium came from sodium chloride.
- The example foods are made up. Nothing is stored or uploaded.
Frequently asked questions
How do I convert sodium to salt?
Multiply sodium by about 2.5. Table salt is sodium chloride, and sodium is roughly 39% of its weight. So 2,000 mg of sodium is about 5.1 g of salt. The page does this for your total.
How much sodium should I eat a day?
This page does not set a number, because the right target depends on you and on advice from a clinician or dietitian. Enter your own target and the page shows how far under or over you are.
What if a label shows salt instead of sodium?
Multiply the salt in grams by about 0.393 to get sodium in grams, then by 1,000 for milligrams. For example 1 gram of salt holds about 393 mg of sodium.
Does the tracker save what I eat?
No. The rows are used in your browser to make the total and are not sent anywhere. Share links carry the numbers only if you copy one.