If everyone ate just ½ teaspoon less salt per day, it would prevent 750,000 new cases of heart disease and save more than half a million lives over a decade, according to new calculations by the University of California, San Francisco researchers. To shake excess salt from your diet, limit your consumption of processed foods such as canned soups and frozen entrees- they supply up to 75% of the sodium in America’s diet- and abstain from topping meals with extra salt; every seven to eight shakes adds ½ teaspoon.