DOES BOTTLED WATER CONTAIN SODIUM?
It is true that some mineral waters contain sodium. The amount they contain can vary quite a lot from one brand to another because each has a different mixture of minerals, depending on where the water comes from.
Natural Mineral Water - There aren't any controls on how much sodium a natural mineral water can contain.
Spring Water and other Bottled water, for example 'table water', have a set limit on the amount of sodium these can contain. They essentially have to meet the same standards as tap water, with a limit of 200mg sodium per litre. Most types of water are generally low in sodium, so there's no need to avoid drinking mineral, spring or other types of bottled water.
HOW DOES THE SODIUM CONTENT EQUATE TO THE SALT CONTENT?
Look at the nutritional information on the label. If the label gives a figure for salt per 100g, all you have to do is work out how much salt is in the amount you will consume. So if you're consuming 500g, you would multiply the figure for 100g by 5.
If you only have a figure for sodium, work out how much sodium is in the amount you will consume. And then multiply this by 2.5 to find the amount of salt.
The legislation regarding labeling salt content is as follows:
● 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, then that is
a medium level of salt
The Food Standards Agency's guidelines on nutrition labelling advise that "as a general rule, use 'trace' or similar terms such as 'nil' or 'negligible' when a nutrient is present in less than 0.1g salt per 100g/100ml".
E.g. drench has 0.018g salt per 100ml and therefore is described as trace.
