What Is the DASH Eating Plan? Servings and Sodium Limits

The DASH eating plan (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) is an eating plan that sets daily and weekly serving goals by food group. It recommends eating vegetables, fruits and whole grains, including fat-free or low-fat dairy products, fish, poultry, beans, nuts and vegetable oils, and limiting foods high in saturated fat, sugar-sweetened beverages and sweets. It requires no special foods. At 2,000 calories a day the targets are 6 to 8 servings of grains, 4 to 5 each of vegetables and fruit, 2 to 3 of low-fat dairy, 6 or fewer of meat, poultry and fish, and 2,300 mg of sodium, according to the NHLBI: DASH Eating Plan page.

The number of servings depends on daily calorie needs. The MedlinePlus page on understanding the DASH diet, cited near the end of this guide, lists plans for 1,200, 1,400, 1,600, 1,800, 2,000, 2,600 and 3,100 calories a day. This guide belongs to the site's healthy eating topic page and uses the 2,000-calorie version for its worked example.

How many servings does DASH call for at each calorie level?

The table below takes three of the seven calorie levels in the source's servings table. Counts are per day unless the cell says per week.

The same source says that figuring out calorie needs means considering age and physical activity level, and it prints one chart for women and one for men. The women's chart gives 1,800 calories for ages 31 to 50 at a sedentary activity level and 2,000 at a moderately active level; the men's chart gives 2,200 for sedentary men of the same ages. On this site's Interactive Menu Planner, the totals show the calories used and remaining across the whole day.

What does one serving of each food group look like?

A DASH serving is a household kitchen measure such as a slice, an ounce or a half cup. The household measures below come from the serving table cited above, and the metric equivalents come from the MedlinePlus DASH diet page cited in the caption.

The two sources print different seed servings. The serving table counts 2 tablespoons or ½ oz of seeds as one serving, while the MedlinePlus DASH diet page lists 1 tablespoon (10 grams). The serving table also notes that cereal serving sizes vary between ½ cup and 1¼ cups depending on cereal type, and says to check the product's Nutrition Facts label.

Salad dressing is printed two ways in the serving table. Its serving list has 2 tablespoons of salad dressing as one serving of fats and oils, while its footnote counts 1 tablespoon of regular dressing as one serving, 1 tablespoon of low-fat dressing as one-half serving, and 1 tablespoon of fat-free dressing as zero servings. The MedlinePlus DASH diet page lists 2 tablespoons (30 grams) of low-fat salad dressing; by the footnote's count that is 2 × ½ = 1 serving.

The archived page Keep an Eye on Portion Size separates the two words. It describes a portion as the amount of a specific food you choose to eat, and a serving as a unit of measure used to describe the amount of food recommended from each food group.

How does a 2,000-calorie DASH day add up in the kitchen?

The lines below multiply the 2,000-calorie serving counts by the serving sizes, with the arithmetic shown. Where a group has a range, the MedlinePlus DASH diet page advises aiming for the lower number of servings if you are not very active and the higher number if you are moderately active.

1. Grains, 6 to 8 servings. Two slices of bread (2) + 1 oz dry cereal (1) + 1½ cups cooked rice or pasta (3 × ½ cup = 3) = 6 servings. Two more half-cups of cooked rice or pasta reach 8.
2. Vegetables, 4 to 5 servings. 4 × ½ cup = 2 cups of cut-up vegetables; 5 × ½ cup = 2½ cups. One cup of raw leafy vegetable counts as one serving.
3. Fruit, 4 to 5 servings. Two medium fruits (2) + 1 cup fresh or frozen fruit (2 × ½ cup = 2) + ¼ cup dried fruit (1) = 5 servings.
4. Dairy, 2 to 3 servings. Two cups of milk or yogurt (2) + 1½ oz cheese (1) = 3 servings.
5. Meat, poultry and fish, 6 or fewer. 6 × 1 oz = 6 oz cooked.
6. Fats and oils, 2 to 3 servings. Two teaspoons of vegetable oil (2) + 1 tablespoon of mayonnaise (1) = 3 servings.
7. Weekly groups. Nuts, seeds and legumes: 4 to 5 servings a week. Sweets: 5 or fewer a week, and 5 ÷ 7 = about 0.7 a day.

The two sources count meat differently. The serving table allows "6 or less" servings at 2,000 calories, with 1 oz of cooked meat, poultry or fish as one serving, while the MedlinePlus DASH diet page says 2 servings or less a day. That page limits lean meat to 6 ounces (170 grams) a day as two 3-ounce (85 gram) servings, and 2 × 3 oz = 6 oz, the same as 6 × 1 oz.

The sources also word the whole-grain advice differently. The MedlinePlus DASH diet page says 3 of the 6 to 8 daily grain servings should be whole grains, and the serving table recommends whole grains for most grain servings. For the vegetable line, the archived Healthy Eating Recipes pages have a Vegetables recipe category.

What sodium levels does the plan describe?

The DASH eating plan has a sodium limit of either 2,300 mg or 1,500 mg per day. The serving table lists 2,300 mg a day as the maximum sodium limit at every calorie level, and the plan's summary page states that 1,500 mg lowers blood pressure even further than 2,300 mg daily.

The DASH-Sodium trial included 412 adults who followed either a typical American diet or the DASH diet, with all foods and beverages provided for 1 month and daily sodium at 3,300 mg, 2,300 mg or 1,500 mg, as summarised by NHLBI: DASH research summaries. Reducing daily sodium lowered blood pressure on either diet, and blood pressure decreased with each reduction of sodium. The DASH diet at 1,500 mg, which the same summary equates to about half a teaspoon of salt, lowered blood pressure more than the typical American diet at all three sodium levels.

The Food and Drug Administration's food-label page, cited in the next section, puts 2,300 mg at about 1 teaspoon of table salt. The two pages give different figures for average U.S. intake: about 3,600 mg a day on the research page and about 3,400 mg on the food-label page.

The MedlinePlus DASH diet page says most people can benefit from lowering sodium intake to 2,300 mg a day. It adds that a health care provider may suggest cutting back to 1,500 mg a day for people who already have high blood pressure, have diabetes or chronic kidney disease, are African American, or are age 51 years or older.

This site also has a blood pressure topic page. The archived article Prevent and Control High Blood Pressure describes the DASH eating plan as one that emphasizes fresh fruits and vegetables and low fat dairy products.

How do you check a food's sodium on the label?

The Daily Value for sodium on the Nutrition Facts label is less than 2,300 mg per day. As a general guide, 5% Daily Value or less of sodium per serving is considered low and 20% or more is considered high, according to FDA: Sodium in Your Diet.

Converted to milligrams, 5% × 2,300 = 115 mg and 20% × 2,300 = 460 mg per serving. The MedlinePlus DASH diet page advises choosing foods that contain less than 5% of the daily value of sodium.

The same label page states that over 70% of dietary sodium comes from eating packaged and prepared foods, not from table salt added to food when cooking or eating. Its table of package claims gives these meanings:

• Salt/sodium-free: less than 5 mg of sodium per serving.
• Very low sodium: 35 mg of sodium or less per serving.
• Low sodium: 140 mg of sodium or less per serving.
• Reduced sodium: at least 25% less sodium than the regular product.
• No-salt-added or unsalted: no salt is added during processing, but these products may not be salt/sodium-free unless stated.

Who should talk to a clinician before changing how they eat?

The DASH diet emphasizes foods high in calcium, potassium, magnesium and fiber. People who have kidney problems or who take certain medicines must be careful about how much potassium they consume, and the advice is to check with a provider before increasing potassium or using salt substitutes, which often contain potassium, according to MedlinePlus: Understanding the DASH diet.

The MedlinePlus DASH diet page tells people who take medicine to treat high blood pressure not to stop taking it while on the DASH diet, and to tell their provider that they are following the diet. This guide is general health education, not personal medical advice.

Blood pressure above 180/120 mm Hg is too high and requires medical attention, especially if you have symptoms. If your blood pressure is 180/120 and you have no symptoms, the instruction is to wait 5 minutes and check it again. If the second measurement is also high and you have a sudden, severe headache, difficulty breathing, sudden, severe pain in your abdomen, chest or back, numbness or weakness, a sudden change in vision, or problems talking, call 911, as NHLBI: high blood pressure symptoms instructs.