The numbers on Low Sodium List come from two public databases of US food labels. The lists use the labels as they stood on these dates.
USDA FoodData Central, Branded Foods
Labels that food makers report to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Release of October 29, 2026. The data are in the public domain (CC0 1.0).
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. FoodData Central, 2026. fdc.nal.usda.gov.
Open Food Facts
Labels read off packages by the shoppers who scan them. Data as of November 12, 2026.
Contains information from Open Food Facts, which is made available here under the Open Database License (ODbL). Individual contents of the database are available under the Database Contents License. The changes this site makes to that database are listed in a short text file.
Federal labeling rules
The amount used to compare a food, the levels and the Daily Value come from the Code of Federal Regulations:
- 21 CFR 101.12: the reference amount for each kind of food.
- 21 CFR 101.61: what “sodium free”, “very low sodium”, “low sodium”, “reduced sodium”, “salt free” and “no salt added” mean on a package.
- 21 CFR 101.9: the Daily Value for sodium.
- 21 CFR 101.13: what counts as a meal and a main dish, which are compared on 100 g.
How we check the numbers says what the site works out from these.