The Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005 recommend that Americans consume less than 2,300 mg (approximately 1 tsp of salt) of sodium per day. People with hypertension, blacks, and middle-aged and older adults should aim to consume no more than 1,500 mg of sodium per day, and meet the potassium recommendation (4,700 mg/day) with food.

Below are the ranges of sodium content for selected foods available in the retail market. This table is provided to exemplify the importance of reading the food label to determine the sodium content of food, which can vary by several hundreds of milligrams in similar foods.

Food Group	Serving Size	Range (mg)
Breads, all types	1 oz	95-210
Frozen pizza, plain, cheese	4 oz	450-1200
Frozen vegetables, all types	½ c	2-160
Salad dressing, regular fat, all types	2 Tbsp	110-505
Salsa	2 Tbsp	150-240
Soup (tomato), reconstituted	8 oz	700-1260
Tomato juice	8 oz (~1 c)	340-1040
Potato chipsa	1 oz (28.4 g)	120-180
Tortilla chipsa	1 oz (28.4 g)	105-160
Pretzelsa	1 oz (28.4 g)	290-560

^a All snack foods areregular flavor, salted.

Source: Agricultural Research Service Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 17 and recent manufacturers label data from retail market surveys. Serving sizes were standardized to be comparable among brands within a food. Pizza and bread slices vary in size and weight across brands.

Note: None of the examples provided were labeled low-sodium products.