Apps To Track Your Sodium (Salt) Intake

If you have been following the news lately, you may have seen information from the American Heart Association regarding elevated blood pressure levels which can lead to potential heart risks from stroke, heart failure or osteoporosis. That means that it is important to keep track of the amount of salt intake in your diet in an effort to keep your blood pressure at levels which are determined by your doctor. Towards that end, they are reporting significant increases in children and adolescent blood pressure levels, which can be attributed to excess salt and obesity. As expected, the mass of information can seem to be hard to follow. But the bottom line is that it is important to be aware of sodium intake as too much over prolonged periods can create risks.

The press release from the American Heart Association does indicate that we are getting too much sodium in our diet with recommend levels 1,500 milligrams per day. For most of us, we have no idea how much we are getting, but with the recommendation level, it is time to take a look. Some sodium occurs naturally in products and some is added, making it difficult to keep track of. A Big Mac contains 970 milligrams of sodium and is more than 50% of the 1500 daily allowance now being recommended. Keeping track may be the only way to see how you are doing in regards to your own sodium intake each day. But as you will quickly find, without some way to collect the information for later review, you are going to get lost very quickly. That is where mobile apps come into play and for the moment do not provide as much as is needed to assist you in collecting the information.

At first glance, I found 3 apps which may help in your efforts to see how much sodium you are collecting, but it may not be that easy. From iTunes, there is Sodium 101 or Sodium One. From Google Play, there is EZ Sodium Tracker. There are few reviews from users on these, but they do contain databases to look up items so you can enter the sodium you are getting. If you eat out a lot, it is going to make it difficult to track the amount you are getting and having databases of chain location foods does not help when you go to the food truck or an independent location for lunch.

These apps, and others, are a starting point to get an idea of what you are taking in. Given the American Heart Association's interest in lowering blood pressure by reducing sodium intake and weight, these kinds of apps are going to become more popular and improve. For now, you are going to have to search for far more information than one should to determine your sodium intake on a daily basis.