Sodium / Salt
jbauer83
Posts: 12 Member
After a good few years I come back to MyFitnessPal to find nothing has been done to this fiasco. There are so many incorrect entries because people think salt and sodium are the same. Why doesn’t MyFitnessPal let the user decide which to use, much like a weather app lets u use either farenheight or centigrade.
People are inputting salt numbers in sodium thinking they are the same. The app needs to let people enter actual salt figures and show that rather then display sodium figures unless that’s what the user uses.
People are inputting salt numbers in sodium thinking they are the same. The app needs to let people enter actual salt figures and show that rather then display sodium figures unless that’s what the user uses.
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Replies
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You can edit the numbers if they're incorrect.
I personally don't track sodium, so whilst I'll always enter it (according to the nutritional panel of a food) I never pay any attention to whether other entries I use are correct in that respect.1 -
Yes but you don’t always know that they are incorrect unless u have the food label there to compare.
Also not sure if I’m being stupid but the only thing I can change is the serving size. Nothing else.2 -
As far as I know, you have to be on the website to edit nutrition information of foods.0
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The app needs to let users pick which they use for this. There’s too many people entering salt numbers into the sodium field even though they are not the same values. MFP needs to realise not every country uses Sodium numbers. In fact most use salt. And like weather apps give us the option which one we see, ie. Fahrenheit or Centigrade! Here we want either Salt or Sodium.1
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The US and Australia have Sodium on the nutrional labels. As MFP is heavy on American members, where would the people be getting Salt numbers?3
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I’ve just gone round my house scanning barcodes every item that has a sodium number on the app is wrong. People are thinking salt and sodium are the same nunber!!! Worst still the salt on packaging is measured in Grams but on the app sodium is measured in MG. so if the packet says 0.3g salt people are putting in 0.3 in the sodium too!!! Instead of 750!!
How have the creators of MyFitnessPal not done anything about this?!?! Or is it cos they only care about the USA?!?3 -
The app needs to let users pick which they use for this. There’s too many people entering salt numbers into the sodium field even though they are not the same values. MFP needs to realise not every country uses Sodium numbers. In fact most use salt. And like weather apps give us the option which one we see, ie. Fahrenheit or Centigrade! Here we want either Salt or Sodium.
Very insightful. I always thought they were the same. Now I'm searching my house and can't find a single label that says Salt, so I guess my situation is different to yours. Even the Salt label listed how much Sodium is in it per serving!!3 -
I’ve just gone round my house scanning barcodes every item that has a sodium number on the app is wrong. People are thinking salt and sodium are the same nunber!!! Worst still the salt on packaging is measured in Grams but on the app sodium is measured in MG. so if the packet says 0.3g salt people are putting in 0.3 in the sodium too!!! Instead of 750!!
How have the creators of MyFitnessPal not done anything about this?!?! Or is it cos they only care about the USA?!?
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0.3grams of salt isn’t 750mg, it’s 120mg of sodium.
If you need to work out your intake from grams salt to milligrams of sodium, then follow this......
Grams of salt (in ur case as example 0.3)
Now divide that by 2.5 then multiply it by a 1000.
So 0.3 grams of salt contains 120mg of sodium.
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moestavern wrote: »0.3grams of salt isn’t 750mg, it’s 120mg of sodium.
If you need to work out your intake from grams salt to milligrams of sodium, then follow this......
Grams of salt (in ur case as example 0.3)
Now divide that by 2.5 then multiply it by a 1000.
So 0.3 grams of salt contains 120mg of sodium.
I stand corrected. This is even more of a reason why we should have the option to either enter the salt or sodium value!!!
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If your anything like me, I buy more or less the same weekly shop every week, so all my entries I have created and entered myself manually, I’d never use mfp entries as I don’t think I’ve ever found 1 complete and correct3
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This.moestavern wrote: »If your anything like me, I buy more or less the same weekly shop every week, so all my entries I have created and entered myself manually, I’d never use mfp entries as I don’t think I’ve ever found 1 complete and correct
I enter everything I use in My Foods and don't share with the database. This lets me customize the name and I know that I've entered the information the way I want it entered and no one can edit it but me. I do double-check items periodically to make sure the nutrition info hasn't been changed by the manufacturer.
It takes a bit of time to set up but it's so much faster and easier in the long run.4 -
I watch sodium- why you only watch salt? I check the sodium numbers against the labels and they are usually pretty accurate. I’m not sure where this is coming from.0
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moestavern wrote: »0.3grams of salt isn’t 750mg, it’s 120mg of sodium.
If you need to work out your intake from grams salt to milligrams of sodium, then follow this......
Grams of salt (in ur case as example 0.3)
Now divide that by 2.5 then multiply it by a 1000.
So 0.3 grams of salt contains 120mg of sodium.
I stand corrected. This is even more of a reason why we should have the option to either enter the salt or sodium value!!!
Why would you want to only track salt? If you have a medical condition the doctors give you a total sodium number, not just added salt.0 -
I watch sodium- why you only watch salt? I check the sodium numbers against the labels and they are usually pretty accurate. I’m not sure where this is coming from.
It's not just added salt.moestavern wrote: »0.3grams of salt isn’t 750mg, it’s 120mg of sodium.
If you need to work out your intake from grams salt to milligrams of sodium, then follow this......
Grams of salt (in ur case as example 0.3)
Now divide that by 2.5 then multiply it by a 1000.
So 0.3 grams of salt contains 120mg of sodium.
I stand corrected. This is even more of a reason why we should have the option to either enter the salt or sodium value!!!
Why would you want to only track salt? If you have a medical condition the doctors give you a total sodium number, not just added salt.
United States (and some other areas) nutrition labels show sodium in milligrams.
EU (and some other areas) nutrition labels show salt in grams so doctors would likely discuss grams of salt rather than milligrams of sodium.
Salt (well, table salt which is the salt we are talking about here) is sodium chloride. 40% of the weight of sodium chloride comes from the sodium.
2400 mg of sodium is the same amount of sodium as is found in 6 grams of salt. It's easy enough to use math to convert between the two but, I'm sure, a pain to have to constantly watch for whether the database entry is really meaning sodium or salt.1 -
I watch sodium- why you only watch salt? I check the sodium numbers against the labels and they are usually pretty accurate. I’m not sure where this is coming from.
It's not just added salt.moestavern wrote: »0.3grams of salt isn’t 750mg, it’s 120mg of sodium.
If you need to work out your intake from grams salt to milligrams of sodium, then follow this......
Grams of salt (in ur case as example 0.3)
Now divide that by 2.5 then multiply it by a 1000.
So 0.3 grams of salt contains 120mg of sodium.
I stand corrected. This is even more of a reason why we should have the option to either enter the salt or sodium value!!!
Why would you want to only track salt? If you have a medical condition the doctors give you a total sodium number, not just added salt.
United States (and some other areas) nutrition labels show sodium in milligrams.
EU (and some other areas) nutrition labels show salt in grams so doctors would likely discuss grams of salt rather than milligrams of sodium.
Salt (well, table salt which is the salt we are talking about here) is sodium chloride. 40% of the weight of sodium chloride comes from the sodium.
2400 mg of sodium is the same amount of sodium as is found in 6 grams of salt. It's easy enough to use math to convert between the two but, I'm sure, a pain to have to constantly watch for whether the database entry is really meaning sodium or salt.
It’s not really an issue in the US, and it is a US based company. I don’t expect UK based companies to cater to some of the US labeling laws.1 -
I'm in Australia and our sodium labeling is the same as the US. But when i buy foods from the UK/Europe i go here to get the conversion.
https://www.heartfoundation.org.au/healthy-eating/food-and-nutrition/salt/sodium-and-salt-converter1 -
Does the sodium listed on U.S. nutrition labels only include sodium from (table) salt (NaCl)? What if there are other compounds with sodium in the food, like baking soda (NaHCO3) or monosodium glutamate? Doesn't the label include that sodium as well?
The EU label seems weird to me, saying "Salt content is exclusively due to the presence of naturally occurring sodium," since you can have tons of naturally occurring sodium, but if there are no chloride ions, there's no salt. And it's sodium that's the concern (for those for whom it is a concern), not just sodium in salt, right?0 -
The FDA says that those other sources of sodium are included in the Sodium number in the Nutrition Facts.lynn_glenmont wrote: »Does the sodium listed on U.S. nutrition labels only include sodium from (table) salt (NaCl)? What if there are other compounds with sodium in the food, like baking soda (NaHCO3) or monosodium glutamate? Doesn't the label include that sodium as well?
The EU label seems weird to me, saying "Salt content is exclusively due to the presence of naturally occurring sodium," since you can have tons of naturally occurring sodium, but if there are no chloride ions, there's no salt. And it's sodium that's the concern (for those for whom it is a concern), not just sodium in salt, right?Some common food additives – like monosodium glutamate (MSG), sodium bicarbonate (baking soda), sodium nitrite, and sodium benzoate – also contain sodium and contribute (in lesser amounts) to the total amount of “sodium” listed on the Nutrition Facts Label.
As for that EU label, I just grabbed a random one I found on Google Images to use as a sample and I have no idea about how EU labeling is regulated.0 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »
The EU label seems weird to me, saying "Salt content is exclusively due to the presence of naturally occurring sodium," since you can have tons of naturally occurring sodium, but if there are no chloride ions, there's no salt. And it's sodium that's the concern (for those for whom it is a concern), not just sodium in salt, right?
That disclaimer on the label will be specific to that product, if the product only has natural occurring sodium and no added salt then the salt content listed is the amount of salt, in grams derived from naturally occurring sodium.
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In Japan, our nutritional labels used to describe "sodium" (in-line with the US standard). However, a major study published in 2013 investigated if the people of Japan could understand the quantity of salt from nutritional labels. (PMID: 24173359 DOI: 10.1038/hr.2013.149 ) They found that only 13.3% of respondents could correctly determine the "salt equivalent" of sodium.
In other words, most people cannot make healthy choices based on the daily recommended salt intake, if "sodium" is written on the nutritional facts label. As a result, the nutritional labels in Japan have changed and now list "Salt Equivalent" instead of sodium (sometimes labels list both).
So this is probable rational as to why the UK and Europe (and now Japan) list "Salt" instead of "Sodium".moestavern wrote: »If you need to work out your intake from grams salt to milligrams of sodium, then follow this......
Grams of salt (in ur case as example 0.3)
Now divide that by 2.5 then multiply it by a 1000.
So 0.3 grams of salt contains 120mg of sodium.
To elaborate on this "2.5" number: in chemistry, this is the inverse of the molar mass ratio of sodium to sodium chloride. I can see this number has been used for simplicity, but here's an alternative which is more "intuitive":Salt (sodium chloride) = 1 sodium atom + 1 chloride atom
Sodium atoms weigh less than chloride atoms, therefore (despite the 1:1 ratio), simply halving the mass of salt does NOT give the mass of sodium. In fact, the known mass ratio of sodium to sodium chloride is 22.99 : 58.44, which equates to 0.3934 grams of sodium per 1 gram of salt (22.99÷58.44=0.3934).
Since sodium is therefore 39.34% of salt, you can derive the sodium content from Japanese and European labels by multiplying the salt equivalent by 39.34%. Conversely, you can convert the sodium content of US labels into the salt equivalent by dividing by 39.34%.
But dividing is less "intuitive", so we can instead find the inverse and realise that 1÷0.3934=2.542. Rather than thinking "we know that sodium is 39.34% the mass of salt, let's reverse that", we can think "salt is 254.2% heavier than sodium".
This is where the "2.5" number comes from. However, if you're converting grams to milligrams, I would say 2.5 is insufficient. You should use 2.54 instead. To re-calculate the example mentioned:300 milligrams Salt ÷ 2.54 = 118 mg Sodium (not 120 mg)
So, to summarise all of that, here are the general equations people will need:Converting from US & Australian labels:
Salt Equivalent (g) = Sodium (mg) × 2.542 ÷ 1000
Converting from European & Japanese labels:
Sodium (mg) = Salt Equivalent (g) × 393.4
or
Sodium (mg) = Salt Equivalent (g) ÷ 2.542 × 1000
Disclosure: I have a science degree in biological chemistry.1 -
Just to post, after many years the problem continues and I just discovered I was making this mistake. I was completely alarmed by the amount of "salt" on my food, when the problem was actually this messe between "salt" and "sodium".1
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Still an issue. I have started using the App and here in the UK food label shows SALT yet the App enters it as SODIUM. The food database I can see some entries as 1.1g of salt put in the app as 1.1mg of sodium. Completely incorrect so now I am closely monitoring this when scanning food with the bar code scanner.0
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SilverZander wrote: »Still an issue. I have started using the App and here in the UK food label shows SALT yet the App enters it as SODIUM. The food database I can see some entries as 1.1g of salt put in the app as 1.1mg of sodium. Completely incorrect so now I am closely monitoring this when scanning food with the bar code scanner.
It's not something they're going to change. People have complained about it for years. There are a number of already discussed reasons that MFP will not and never will change it.0 -
All I know.. is whenever I used to log my food.. my sodium number was in red and way off the charts. I never understood why and I basically ignored all the breakdown recommendations and simply tried to hit my calorie limit. I never ate processed and salt ridden foods.so didn't get why the alarming huge number. I always thought it was off and an error on MFP programming.0
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