1 gram of Sodium = ?

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

I am trying to improve on teaching nutrition and am trying to create a visualization for patients to participate in. Is 1 gram of sodium equal to a teaspoon? I am hoping to start explaining how to figure out how to look at a nutrition label for a person who is on a 2 gram sodium diet.

Thanks!

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Specializes in cardiac, ortho, med surg, oncology.

Yep, I gram is roughly equal to 1 tsp. Here is a good link about low sodium diets that may help you in your patient education. It discusses the various ways sodium is labeled on products and how sodium is in certain medications. http://www.bostonscientific.com/templatedata/imports/HTML/lifebeatonline/winter2005/recovery.shtml

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

Our dietician created a great visual aid that I continue to use for health fairs, patient teaching and teaching staff. She took ziplock bags and placed the amount of salt (or sugar, depending on the topic of your presentation) for various common foods. She labeled each bag with numbers. The numbers corresponded to the appropriate food. Learners have to match the bag to the food item (empty boxes and bottles/cans). You could use pictures too. Anyway, they are generally amazed at how much sugar or salt is in a food item! I give away a trinket for the most correct answers.

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Actually it's just under a half tsp of salt to get 1g of sodium.

The dry bulk density of NaCl is approx. 1.154 g/cc which equates to a volume of 0.866 cc or 0.17569 tsp (US)

Since NaCl is approx 39% sodium by weight, it takes 2.56cc (vol) of NaCl to get 1 gram of Na++, which equates to approx. 0.45 tsp (US).

I just knew that chemistry minor would come in handy some day :D

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Specializes in Cardiac Telemetry, ED.

Smartypants. :wink2:

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
Our dietician created a great visual aid that I continue to use for health fairs, patient teaching and teaching staff. She took ziplock bags and placed the amount of salt (or sugar, depending on the topic of your presentation) for various common foods. She labeled each bag with numbers. The numbers corresponded to the appropriate food. Learners have to match the bag to the food item (empty boxes and bottles/cans). You could use pictures too. Anyway, they are generally amazed at how much sugar or salt is in a food item! I give away a trinket for the most correct answers.

This was almost exactly what I was planning to do. I witnessed a dietitican do something very similar to this at a health fair I attended and wanted to adapt this to my teaching at work and my own health fairs (in fact, I have one to attend this Saturday). I think that visuals are the best. And, to be honest, I didn't quite understand it myself until I had actually witnessed this for myself. At times, just teaching to read labels with no practical hands on can frustrate a patient that really has a readiness to learn. Thank you for sharing.:yeah:

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.
Yep, I gram is roughly equal to 1 tsp. Here is a good link about low sodium diets that may help you in your patient education. It discusses the various ways sodium is labeled on products and how sodium is in certain medications. http://www.bostonscientific.com/templatedata/imports/HTML/lifebeatonline/winter2005/recovery.shtml

Thank you so much for this link. I found it to be extremely helpful and plan to add this to my teaching. I am thinking that if I demonstrate the amount of salt should be in the diet with a teaspoon, and then help them to count how much they are actually consuming, they would be able to see two things-one being the small amount of sodium that is really needed, especially in a 2 gram sodium diet and then, let them see how much they are normally consuming. The dietitican at the health fair I was at a few weeks ago showed this with the sugar, and it was hilarious because she had the participants scooping away until she showed them how their 'cups runneth over".

Thanks, everyone!

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A raisin?

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Specializes in Community Health, Med-Surg, Home Health.

I want to sincerely thank you all. I was able to apply your suggestions to my teaching at a health fair successfully today. I felt confident, knowledgable and most importantly, the message got to the participants in a clear, comprehensionable manner. Allnurse SERIOUSLY ROCKS!! Love to you all...interacting with you guys has made me a better nurse!

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