Ever wonder how much sugar you take in in a day?  Check out this great new online sodium calculator – you may be shocked by your results!

The calculator was developed by researchers from the University of Toronto, in collaboration with the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and and the Institute for Clinical Evaluative Sciences.  It takes about 3 minutes to calculate your salt intake using this fantastic tool.  A series of questions are asked about how often you eat out, eat canned foods, processed foods, etc, and based on this information, it estimates your average daily sodium intake.

I was surprised by my own results – apparently I consume an average of 2800mg of sodium daily, exceeding the recommended maximum of 2300 mg per day.  I learned that a whopping 35% of my daily intake comes from eating out, even though it’s only 1-2 times per week for lunch and 1-2 times per week for dinner.  One quarter of my salt intake comes from dips and sauces (here I enjoy soy sauce, ketchup or salsa about once a day).  Looks like I’ve got some work to do!

Have a go at this yourself – please share your results and thoughts using the comments link at the bottom of this post!

Dr Sue Pedersen www.drsue.ca © 2013 

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