How do you measure salt intake?

Answer 1

Salt Intake can be measured at intake or excretion.

Intake: Food Records (E.g. A three day food diary)

This is achieved by the recording of everything a person consumes over a period of time, which can be analyzed to determine salt intake. There are variety of issues with this method such as; miss recording or food, difficult in judging quantity consumed, variation of salt levels in similar products, difference in salt content between foods consumed and dietary analysis input.

Excretion: Urine Analysis

The body maintains sodium (see note) between narrow limits, excess is processed by the kidneys and excreted in urine. By measuring the salt content of urine, you can get a highly accurate measure of salt intake. This is considered the 'gold standard test'.

Note: Salt (NaCL) comprises of sodium and chloride. When discussing salt intake, nutritionally you are generally concerned about sodium. I believe for each 6g of salt there is roughly 2.4g of sodium.