This week is ‘Salt Awareness Week’ and it was created to help raise awareness of the damaging effect of too much salt to our health.

Too much salt in your diet can cause raised blood pressure, which can increase your risk of heart disease and stroke. High blood pressure often has no symptoms and many people don’t even know they have it. According to the NHS, Adults should eat no more than 6g of salt a day, that’s around one teaspoon. The maximum amount of salt children should have, depends on their age. Please click the link above for more information.

LoSalt

I’ve teamed up with LoSalt during Salt Awareness Week. LoSalt tastes just like regular table salt but has 66% less sodium. With the sodium in salt being linked to high blood pressure, heart disease and stroke, LoSalt is the easy way to make a healthier switch.

LoSalt can be used in the exactly same way as you would other salts. By substituting normal salt with LoSalt, I’d like to show you how to make delicious curried butternut squash soup. It’s a firm favourite in our house and it’s really easy to make. It’s also low in calories but absolutely delicious!

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

There are only seven ingredients needed to make curried butternut squash soup.

Ingredients include:

• One medium sized butternut squash
• LoSalt
• Black pepper
• Two medium sized onions
• Two vegetable stock cubes
• 2 tsp of curry powder
• One Cal Spray

Preheat oven to 220°C (200°C if using a fan oven) Gas Mark 7 / 425 F.

Peel, de-seed and dice your butternut squash roughly into one inch cube pieces.

Peel and quarter your onions.

Spray a large roasting tray with 1 cal oil and put your butternut squash and onion into the tray.

Give it all another spray with oil and add your LoSalt and pepper. Bake, uncovered for 35-40 minutes, until squash is tender. At this point don’t worry if some of the pieces look a little browned, this will ultimately add to the roasted flavour of the soup.

Remove your veg from the oven, tip into a saucepan and add your stock.

Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. I usually make this soup to freeze or eat the next day so at this point I let it cool right down so I can pour it into my blender without risk of it cracking from the heat. If you are going to serve it straight away I’d recommend blending in small quantities so you can avoid the risk of damage to your blender.

Using a small frying pan over a low heat toast the curry powder until fragrant which usually takes a couple of minutes. You need to have a watchful eye over this part as it can burn easily so take care not to over toast it. Stir into your pureed soup and add chilli flakes if you want to spice it up further.

Serve and enjoy! Swirl in some lovely Greek yoghurt and add some coriander as garnish. We also like ours with either a mini naan bread or a seeded bun.

As you can see, by substituting your normal salt with LoSalt, it contributes to making a huge difference.

Research

Salt in your diet is still important though and it does play a crucial role in maintaining human health. It’s the main source of sodium and chloride ions in the human diet. Sodium is essential for nerve and muscle function and is involved in the regulation of fluids in the body.

I’m a bit of a salt lover to be honest. I’d choose salted popcorn over sweet any day! It’s important to know what salt is already in your food though. Are you adding more salt into already high salt meals? Adding salt can be a bit of a habit and I know people who will add salt to their food without tasting it first.

Excess salt in the diet is a major health issue. Research from LoSalt found that the nation is at crisis point when it comes to awareness of their salt intake and the impact it has on their blood pressure. On average, Brits believe they consume 3.2g of salt per day compared to what we’re actually consuming – an alarming average of 8g!

44% of people would not stop using salt regardless of any medical or health implications! 8 in 10 Brits continue to add even more salt to food on their plate or when cooking!

LoSalt is available from supermarkets such as ASDA, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose. Ocado, Marks & Spencer’s and Wholefoods. Click here to see more delicious recipes from LoSalt.

Thanks for reading and I hope you consider making this curried butternut squash soup! Let me know what you think of it.

* Disclaimer: This was a collaborative post with LoSalt. All words and opinions are my own.