Sample: how much sauce changes a dish

The setup

The base dish has 300 mg of sodium. Sauce A has 1,000 mg of sodium per 15 mL, and Sauce B has 600 mg per 15 mL. Both sauces are illustrative, not real products. The example limit is 600 mg.

Each total is the base plus the sauce’s share: for 5 mL of Sauce B, 300 + 600 × 5 ÷ 15 = 500 mg. Percentages use 2,300 mg, the Daily Value for sodium on Canadian labels of foods for people aged four and older.^[1] A Daily Value is a labelling reference, not a personal target.

Four amounts of sauce

Sample · Illustrative Sodium in the dish with each sauce amount
Scenario	Sodium (mg)	% of the 2,300 mg Daily Value	Against the 600 mg example limit
Base + 15 mL of Sauce A	1,300	56.5%	700 mg above
Base + 15 mL of Sauce B	900	39.1%	300 mg above
Base + 5 mL of Sauce B	500	21.7%	100 mg below
Base + 10 mL of Sauce B	700	30.4%	100 mg above

Three numbers worth knowing

Worked out from the table

The most Sauce B that stays at or below the example limit: (600 − 300) ÷ 600 × 15 = 7.5 mL.
The highest base dish that stays at or below the example limit with 5 mL of Sauce B: 600 − 200 = 400 mg.
Full Sauce A against 5 mL of Sauce B: 1,300 − 500 = 800 mg apart.

A food you avoid comes first

Sauce B’s illustrative recipe contains soy and wheat. With wheat among the foods to avoid, the dish with 5 mL of Sauce B is left out, even though its 500 mg is below the example limit.

A result on one nutrient never clears a food you avoid. Cross-contact is not assessed in this sample.

Try it in the demo

In our sample demo, the tofu, greens and rice dish uses the same 300 mg base and Sauce B.

Open the demo with 5 mL of Sauce B

Sources

Health Canada. Nutrition labelling – Table of daily values. 20 October 2022. Accessed 6 October 2026.

This source does not endorse NutriChoice or this sample.