Many of us in Britain eat too much salt. But adding salt at the dinner table is only a small part of the problem: 75% of the salt we eat is already in food when we buy it.

Why cut down on salt?

Too much salt can cause raised blood pressure, which around one third of adults in the UK already have.

It's called the silent killer as it often has no symptoms, but if you have high blood pressure you are three times more likely to develop heart disease or have a stroke.

Cutting down on salt reduces blood pressure, and when your blood pressure goes down your risk of developing stroke or heart disease goes down.

How much is too much?

Adults should eat no more than six grams of salt a day: that's around one full teaspoon. Children should eat less (see below for recommendations for babies and children).

Of course, one easy way to eat less salt is to stop adding extra salt to your food during cooking and at the dinner table. If you regularly add salt to food, try cutting it out: you'll rediscover the real tastes of your favourite foods.

Look at labels and choose foods that are lower in salt

Cutting back on added salt is only a small part of the solution. To really cut down, you need to become aware of the salt that is already in the food you buy and avoid foods that contain a high amount.

Fortunately, food labels now make this a lot easier. Nutritional information labels are usually on the back of the food packaging. Look at the figure for salt per 100g.

• High is more than 1.5g salt per 100g (or 0.6g sodium)
• Low is 0.3g salt or less per 100g (or 0.1g sodium)

If the amount of salt per 100g is in between these figures, that is a medium level of salt.

As a rule, aim for foods that have a low or medium salt content. Leave high-salt foods for occasional use.

On the front of some food packets now you'll find the traffic light labelling system. This will tell you at glance if a food is high in fat, salt and sugar. Red means high so leave red salt foods for the occasional treat and aim to mainly eat foods that are amber or green.

For more tips to help you choose foods that are lower in salt, see the salt section of the Food Standards Agency's Eatwell site. You can also find a selection of low-salt recipes on Eatwell.

Salt and sodium

  Salt is also called sodium chloride.

Sometimes, food labels may list salt as sodium. But there is a simple way to work out how much salt you are eating from the sodium figure:

• Salt = sodium x 2.5

Babies, children and salt

Babies and children under 11 should have less salt than adults.

Babies under a year old need less than 1g of salt a day, as their kidneys can't cope with more. If a baby is breastfed, he or she will get the right amount of salt from breast milk. Formula milk contains a similar amount.

Never add salt to your baby's milk or food, and don't give food that isn't specifically for babies as it's often too high in salt.

For some salt-free weaning recipes see the Healthy Start website.

The daily recommended maximum amount of salt children should eat depends on age:

• 1 to 3 years: 2g salt a day (0.8g sodium)
• 4 to 6 years: 3g salt a day (1.2g sodium)
• 7 to 10 years: 5g salt a day (2g sodium)
• 11 and over: 6g salt a day (2.4g sodium)

Making sure your child doesn't eat too much salt means you're also helping to ensure he or she doesn't develop a taste for salty food, which makes them them less likely to eat too much salt as an adult.