Food With Chloride is a lifestyle blog that celebrates food and its impact on our bodies. Food With Chloride is here to provide you with the latest information on what your food is doing inside of you and how to make sure it’s doing good. You’ll find articles about food recipes, the latest trends in food, along with articles about health, fitness, and well-being.
Food With Chloride
Chloride is a component of table salt or sea salt, which is also known as sodium chloride (NaCl). It is an important body electrolyte found in blood. Chloride is responsible for keeping fluid balance within cells and maintaining pH levels, pressure, and volume of blood. It is also indispensable to gastric juices (as part of hydrochloric acid), which aid in digestion in the stomach. Chloride, potassium, and sodium are vital minerals that are essential for the conduction of electrical impulses through the nervous system.
Chloride imbalances may occur due to excessive diarrhea and vomiting, causing a loss of electrolytes. Since excess salt is excreted through urine, a heavy salt intake can damage the kidneys. A condition of deficient chloride levels does not normally occur in adults. High chloride or low chloride blood levels can be indicative of a host of disorders, such as metabolic disorders, kidney disease, certain respiratory conditions, congestive heart failure, etc. that may be life-threatening. Hence, it is very important to maintain optimum chloride levels in the body.
The American Food and Nutrition Board recommends a daily intake of 2.3 grams of chloride for an adult to make up for the lost salt through sweat. The minimum required amount of daily chloride intake for an average adult is between 0.75-0.90 grams, of which, over 0.50 grams is lost per day. We get most of our chloride through salt (either table salt or sea salt) that is used during the preparation of food. However, an excess intake of salt or sodium chloride may lead to high blood pressure, severely affecting the cardiovascular system and the kidneys.
Foods that contain high chloride levels include the following:
- Tomatoes: Although the chloride content of a tomato is high, there is a reduced risk of heart disease with this fruit, due to the presence of high amounts of lycopene (a naturally occurring pigment)
- Leafy vegetables such as lettuce and celery
- Olives: The olive is a small tree that is found primarily in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe and China. The fruit of this tree is used to extract olive oil, which is used in many culinary preparations.
- Seaweeds like kelp and dulse, which are seawater-dwelling marine plants (algae)
- Rye: It is a grain grass related to the wheat and barley family. Rye is used to prepare alcoholic beverages like whiskey, beer, and vodka. In addition, rye flour is used to make rye bread.
Many processed foods and snacks contain a high sodium levels, thus implying that the chloride levels are also high. These include salted nuts, chips, sauces, canned food items, butter, salted meat and fish, pickles, burgers, sandwiches, cheese, tomato ketchup, bacon and ham. Nevertheless, despite the above, it is always recommended to take the advice of a suitable healthcare professional before bringing any alteration to your regular food habits and diet.
Foods That Contain Chlorine
Fruits and Vegetables
Chloride is found naturally in some vegetables, including tomatoes, celery, olives, lettuce and seaweed. It’s also found in many canned vegetables due to the salt added to help preserve them. For example, canned peas can have as much as 510 milligrams of chloride per serving, but the same amount of fresh peas only has about 8 milligrams. Just five olives canned in brine can provide 3,000 milligrams of chloride, and two dried figs have 170 milligrams. Other than some dried fruits, most fruits tend to contain only small amounts of chloride. However, some raw fruits and vegetables may have traces of chlorine on them due to being washed in a chlorine bleach solution for sanitization, according to Oklahoma State University. They are washed in water after being sanitized, so levels should be very low. You’d be able to taste excessive levels of chlorine on your produce before they became dangerous.
Meat, Poultry and Seafood
In the United States, poultry is often chilled in a chlorine water tank to help disinfect it and limit the risk of salmonella. The chlorine gets washed off, so any traces should be minimal. Salted meats, cold cuts, hot dogs and other processed meats are among the highest sources of chloride in the diet. Prawns, canned tuna, scallops, called salmon, raw oysters, mussels, lobster, crab and cod all provide significant amounts of chloride to your diet. Ham, bacon, corned beef, organ meats, salami and sausages are also high in chloride.
Dairy Products
Many dairy products provide at least small amounts of chloride, but cheeses tend to have the most chloride. A serving of cheddar that is slightly less than an ounce provides 1,060 milligrams, and the same amount of Camembert has a whopping 2,320 milligrams. Butter is also high in chloride because it’s seasoned with salt.
Other Foods
Milk chocolate, toffee, peanut butter, canned soups, tomato sauce, mayonnaise, French dressing, dried coconut, roasted and salted peanuts, scrambled eggs and many baked goods are also sources of chloride. To minimize your chloride intake, look for foods that are low in sodium because sodium and chloride are so often found together in processed foods.
Which Foods Contain The Most Chloride?
Chloride is a component of table salt or sea salt, which is also known as sodium chloride (NaCl). It is an important body electrolyte found in blood. Chloride is responsible for keeping fluid balance within cells and maintaining pH levels, pressure, and volume of blood.
Chloride is a component of table salt or sea salt, which is also known as sodium chloride (NaCl). It is an important body electrolyte found in blood. Chloride is responsible for keeping fluid balance within cells and maintaining pH levels, pressure, and volume of blood. It is also indispensable to gastric juices (as part of hydrochloric acid), which aid in digestion in the stomach. Chloride, potassium, and sodium are vital minerals that are essential for the conduction of electrical impulses through the nervous system.
Chloride imbalances may occur due to excessive diarrhea and vomiting, causing a loss of electrolytes. Since excess salt is excreted through urine, a heavy salt intake can damage the kidneys. A condition of deficient chloride levels does not normally occur in adults. High chloride or low chloride blood levels can be indicative of a host of disorders, such as metabolic disorders, kidney disease, certain respiratory conditions, congestive heart failure, etc. that may be life-threatening. Hence, it is very important to maintain optimum chloride levels in the body.
The American Food and Nutrition Board recommends a daily intake of 2.3 grams of chloride for an adult to make up for the lost salt through sweat. The minimum required amount of daily chloride intake for an average adult is between 0.75-0.90 grams, of which, over 0.50 grams is lost per day. We get most of our chloride through salt (either table salt or sea salt) that is used during the preparation of food. However, an excess intake of salt or sodium chloride may lead to high blood pressure, severely affecting the cardiovascular system and the kidneys.
Foods that contain high chloride levels include the following:
- Tomatoes: Although the chloride content of a tomato is high, there is a reduced risk of heart disease with this fruit, due to the presence of high amounts of lycopene (a naturally occurring pigment)
- Leafy vegetables such as lettuce and celery
- Olives: The olive is a small tree that is found primarily in the Mediterranean region and parts of Europe and China. The fruit of this tree is used to extract olive oil, which is used in many culinary preparations.
- Seaweeds like kelp and dulse, which are seawater-dwelling marine plants (algae)
- Rye: It is a grain grass related to the wheat and barley family. Rye is used to prepare alcoholic beverages like whiskey, beer, and vodka. In addition, rye flour is used to make rye bread.
Many processed foods and snacks contain a high sodium levels, thus implying that the chloride levels are also high. These include salted nuts, chips, sauces, canned food items, butter, salted meat and fish, pickles, burgers, sandwiches, cheese, tomato ketchup, bacon and ham. Nevertheless, despite the above, it is always recommended to take the advice of a suitable healthcare professional before bringing any alteration to your regular food habits and diet.
Chloride in foods
The most common and abundant source of chloride is sodium chloride, or ‘table salt’, which is present in most processed foods. However, there are also plenty of foods that naturally contain chloride.
Here are some of the best sources of chloride:
| Food | RDA (%)* | Chloride (mg) |
|---|---|---|
| Prawns, boiled (120 g) | 319% | 2550 |
| Salmon, canned (100 g) | 110% | 880 |
| Lettuce, raw (100 g) | 31% | 250 |
| Celery, raw (50 g) | 23% | 180 |
| Tomato, raw (120 g) | 6% | 50 |
* Based on the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for healthy adults (800 mg/day), according to the EU Scientific Committee on Food.
What if you’re not getting enough chloride?
Chloride deficiency is very rare. Especially with a Western diet that includes processed foods, you are highly unlikely to obtain less chloride than you need.
How much chloride is too much?
Together with sodium, chloride is a component of table salt. This means that both are often consumed together. Therefore, a high intake of chloride is usually accompanied by a high intake of sodium, making the individual effects of chloride overconsumption on health difficult to isolate.
Excessive consumption of both chloride and sodium may be associated with the same negative health consequences, including high blood pressure. The available evidence suggests that these adverse effects are usually observed only in the presence of both chloride and sodium.
Due to the insufficient data available, a tolerable upper intake level (UL) has not been established for chloride alone. Regarding overall salt consumption, the World Health Organization advises not to exceed an intake of 5 grams of table salt per day. That’s just under a teaspoonful.
Take-aways
The three things to remember about chloride are:
- Chloride contributes to the normal functioning of the digestive system in the stomach.
- You can cover your daily needs of chloride through table salt or foods like prawns, celery and lettuce, which naturally contain chloride.
- It’s currently unclear what too much chloride alone does to your health. However, many of the foods that contain chloride also contain sodium, which is known to be harmful in excessive amounts. To avoid the adverse health effects associated with high sodium intake, avoid having more than 5 grams of salt per day.
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