For 30 days this fall, I logged everything I ate, and my sodium averaged about 2,285 mg a day. That sits right at the 2,300 mg upper limit and well above the 1,500 mg the American Heart Association calls ideal. No single food did it. Soup, pretzels, restaurant meals and bread on the side added up.

Below I walk through how much sodium you need, what my log showed, where my sodium came from, and the small changes that make the biggest difference for blood pressure.