By now we all know that too much salt is bad for you. Excess salt intake leads to high blood pressure, which leads to all kinds of terrible things. But salt is in pretty much every processed food out there, and even the most ardent label reader can’t divine how much sodium chloride is in the soup at the town diner. Besides, how much is “too much”? The folks at Thanko have brought some hard numbers to this ambiguous world with their new Handy Salt Meter.
Just stir this thermometer-looking thing around in your foodstuff and it tells you the salt content. It only works in liquid-type foods between about 140 and 175 degrees Fahrenheit, in part (I’d imagine) because it’s hard to stir things like meatloaf. The readout tells you the percentage of salt in your food. Lower is better, obviously, but if you want to figure out the gram amount of salt you’re about to wolf down, you’ll have to know the weight of whatever you’re eating and do some percentage calculating in your head. Or on your phone.
You can buy this salt-o-meter for just under $US20. Realising how much salt is in everything you eat might raise your blood pressure anyway, but at least with this thing in your pocket you’ll have data to back you up. [Thanko via CNet]
Image by Thanko