You may think the easiest way to reduce the amount of salt you eat is to cut back on the amount you add when cooking or eating on the table. This will help, but only 15 per cent of salt in our diet comes from what we knowingly add to our food, while 75 per cent of it comes from processed foods. With the trend to buy more and more readymade, convenience meals we are loading our bodies with unnecessary salt. It may surprise you to find out just how much salt some processed foods contain — a small can of chicken soup, for instance, can contain well over half the recommended daily amount of salt. The good news is that some food manufacturers are taking steps to reduce the level of sodium in their foods. Heinz has been gradually reducing both the salt and sugar in many of its products. Since 1986, when this initiative was introduced, Heinz has reduced the amount of salt added to its baked beans by 15 per cent and in some products the reduction has been even greater.

The more salt and salty foods we eat, the more we tend to crave for salt. As anyone who has ever tried to give up sugar in tea or coffee will know, with a little perseverance you soon grow to enjoy drinks without sugar and the same is true for salt.

If you gradually reduce the amount of salt you eat, your palate will adapt as the salt receptors on the tongue become much more sensitive to salt. This takes about four weeks but then you will find you prefer foods with less salt. Try using flavourings, such as herbs and spices. You’ll be surprised at just how delicious low-salt food can be.

• It is estimated that our current intake of salt is about 12 times greater than the amount our bodies need.

• As much as 75 per cent of salt in our diet comes from processed foods, 15 per cent from salt added during cooking or at the table, and 10 per cent occurs naturally in foods.

• Reducing our intake of salt from 9 gm a day to 6 gm a day (which is still much more than the body needs) can reduce the number of people dying from strokes by 22 per cent and those dying from heart attacks by 16 per cent.

Despite the fact that sea salt tastes better than table salt, its sodium content is just as potentially harmful. "Sea salt contains some small amounts of other trace elements," and so it is better than table salt, but both types of salt are rich in sodium and that’s not good news. There’s a brand of tea salt which is available in supermarkets abroad, that has 60 per cent less sodium in it. In India too, it is available by the brand name Lono salt. It’s also high in magnesium and potassium, which both help lower blood pressure.

Salt is made up the elements sodium and chloride but it is only the sodium part that can cause problems. The nutritional information on food labels usually gives a figure for the amount of sodium per 100 gm or per serving. The maximum intake of salt recommended in a healthy diet is 6 gm salt a day, which is equivalent to 2.3 gm sodium.

As a guide, if a label says a food contains more than 0.5 gm sodium per serving, that’s a lot, whereas 0.1, whereas 0.1 gm of sodium per serving is reasonably low.

Reduced sodium bread contains 40 per cent less sodium than a standard white loaf.

Reduced sodium soy sauce available from most supermarkets contains 40 per cent less sodium than normal.

Some "healthy eating" ready meals are low in fat, sugar and salt.

Salt substitutes there are several to choose from out it’s much better to enhance your palate to enjoy the natural flavour of foods.

Low sodium vegetable stock cubes and yeast extracts are available in health shops.