Updated
Cooking with softened water may be acceptable for many households, but anyone who has been told to restrict sodium should decide based on the measured sodium level and advice from a healthcare professional. A softener’s effect varies with the incoming water and the equipment settings.
Why Softened Water Contains Sodium
A salt-based ion-exchange softener removes calcium and magnesium and replaces them with sodium ions. This controls hardness and scale, but it can increase the sodium concentration at treated taps. If you have a prescribed sodium limit, ask the healthcare professional who set it whether and how to count water used for soups, rice, pasta, coffee and other foods.
The EPA says drinking water is not a significant source of sodium for most people. It advises people being treated for sodium-sensitive hypertension to ask a healthcare provider about their water. For a very low-sodium diet of 500 milligrams per day, the EPA recommends no more than 20 milligrams per liter of sodium in drinking water. See the EPA drinking-water sodium advisory.
Check the Water at Your Kitchen Tap
The Water Authority’s 2025 Albuquerque water-quality report lists a 29 parts-per-million system-wide sodium average in compliance monitoring and a 22–75 parts-per-million range in special distribution monitoring. Those values apply to the municipal supply. A home softener may raise the sodium level, so a treated-tap test provides the information needed for your kitchen.
Alternatives for Drinking and Cooking
- Leave a cold kitchen tap on an unsoftened bypass when the plumbing layout permits it.
- Use a point-of-use reverse-osmosis system certified to reduce sodium.
- Test and maintain the selected tap and treatment system as recommended.
The CDC’s home water treatment guidance notes that reverse osmosis can remove sodium and other substances, while also stressing that consumers should check the specific system’s label. MicroPure can compare water softening with reverse osmosis for a kitchen tap. Follow your healthcare professional’s advice when sodium is part of a medical diet.