How We Verify Sodium Data
Every sodium figure on this site traces back to an official restaurant source. This page explains exactly how numbers get from a chain's nutrition documents onto our pages — and what we do when a chain publishes nothing.
1. Official sources only
For each chain we locate the brand's own nutrition materials — the nutrition calculator, the published nutrition/allergen PDF, or the menu pages on the brand's domain. When a PDF exists, we download and extract the full document, not a summary. Third-party nutrition aggregators are used only to cross-check, never as the sole source for a published number.
2. What we publish per chain
A chain guide is only considered complete when it covers the real menu slice: core entrees in multiple sizes, sides, drinks, the sauces and toppings that drive sodium, and breakfast or kids' items where the brand sells them nationally. Each guide also includes lower-sodium meal builds whose totals are computed from the same published item values.
3. Estimates are labeled — and floored
Some useful orders don't exist as a published line item — for example, "fries with no salt." When we include one, it is computed from the official base item minus a documented sodium-savings figure, with a residual floor (salt is never the only sodium source — buns, cheese, and seasoning blends remain). These rows are marked as estimates on the page, never blended silently into official data.
4. Dated and re-checked
Every chain guide records the source URL and the date it was last verified. Menus and recipes change, so guides are re-checked on a rolling basis and updated when a chain publishes new figures. Blog posts cite the same verified data and carry their own editorial-pass date.
5. Corrections
Found a number that doesn't match the chain's current calculator? Tell us via the contact page — include the item and the official source you're looking at, and we'll re-verify and correct the guide.
What we don't do
- We never invent a sodium value. If a chain publishes nothing usable, the item is omitted.
- We don't copy numbers from other nutrition sites without an official source behind them.
- We don't give medical advice — sodium targets belong to you and your clinician.