Salt to Sodium Converter

Table salt is sodium chloride (NaCl). Sodium makes up about 40% of its weight, and chloride the other 60%. That gives two simple conversions:

• Salt → sodium: sodium (mg) = salt (g) × 400
• Sodium → salt: salt (g) = sodium (mg) ÷ 400

So a ready meal labelled 1.8g of salt in the UK contains 720mg of sodium, and a US soup can labelled 890mg of sodium contains just over 2.2g of salt.

How do I convert grams of salt to milligrams of sodium?

Multiply grams of salt by 400. Salt (sodium chloride) is about 40% sodium by weight, so 1g of salt contains 400mg of sodium, and 2.5g of salt contains 1,000mg (1g) of sodium.

How do I convert sodium to salt?

Divide milligrams of sodium by 400 to get grams of salt (or multiply grams of sodium by 2.5). For example, 2,300mg of sodium is equivalent to about 5.8g of salt.

How much sodium is in a teaspoon of salt?

One teaspoon of table salt weighs about 5.7g and contains roughly 2,300mg of sodium, which happens to equal the FDA daily limit for adults.

Why do UK labels show salt but US labels show sodium?

Labelling regulations differ. The UK, EU, Australia and New Zealand require salt in grams on nutrition labels, while the US and Canada require sodium in milligrams. They describe the same thing in different units: salt = sodium × 2.5.

Is 6g of salt the same as 2,300mg of sodium?

Close but not identical. 6g of salt (the UK NHS daily maximum) is 2,400mg of sodium. The US FDA limit of 2,300mg of sodium is about 5.8g of salt. In practice the UK and US daily guidelines are nearly the same amount.