In addition to what other people said it's also a linguistic problem. Sodium (Natrium in most languages) and salt (Sodiumchloride/Natriumchloride) are not the same thing, like at all. It's not even accurate to say that salt contains sodium. It does not, it's a chemical compound. Yet in the English language (mostly US English) sodium and salt are often used interchangeably. This leads people to think that adding any "additional" (whatever that means) salt is the same as having high sodium levels. For a normal, healthy-ish diet (the middle ground between McDonald's every day and exclusively eating raw salad) the amount of salt has no effect at all on one's "sodium levels". Sodium is a boogeyman anyway the same as msg, but others have already pointed that out.