In China, people who cook with a lot of salt and actually use a special spoon to measure less salt ended up excreting much less salt in their urine than people who didn’t use the spoon — showing that using the tool correctly makes it work better.

People in China who used a special spoon that measures exactly 2 grams of salt while cooking for three years ended up excreting less salt in their urine than those who didn’t use it—meaning the spoon helped them eat less salt.

In China, people who used a special spoon that measures exactly 2 grams of salt ended up eating less salt than those who switched to low-salt seasoning—suggesting that changing how you cook might work better than just swapping out your salt.

In China, when people were encouraged to eat less salt over three years, their urine showed a big drop in salt relative to potassium—and the people who started with high blood pressure saw the biggest changes. This suggests cutting salt might help those at highest risk for heart problems the most.