The unhealthiest ready meals ranked by salt content
By JOHN ELY DEPUTY HEALTH EDITOR FOR MAILONLINE
Published: | Updated:
Ready meals sold in Britain can be saltier than ten portions of McDonald's fries, a damning audit has revealed. The probe, by campaign group Action on Salt, looked at the nutritional content of more than 1,500 meals sold by more than 30 brands and supermarkets in the UK.
Results showed that the saltiest option contains a whopping 6.1g per serving—nearly twice as salty as seawater, two margarita pizzas (5.2g) or almost ten servings of chips at the fast-food chain. By comparison, the NHS recommends adults only eat 6g of salt for the entire day, for children the limit is even lower.
One in five ready meals for sale in Britain exceeded the recommended daily limits for salt, fat and unsaturated fat, Action in Salt found. Even some seemingly healthy dishes contained far more of all three nutrients than recommended. Experts today labelled the probe's findings 'concerning' and 'unacceptable', arguing manufacturers must reduce the salt content of their meals and protect public health.
Having excess salt in your system leads to water retention in the blood raising your blood pressure. This can, subsequently, raise the risk of a potentially fatal heart attack or stroke. Heart disease and strokes are one of Britain's biggest killers, killing about 160,000 a year, with the American death toll about five times higher.
Action on Salt's investigation found all of the ready meals produced by chef and healthy eating campaigner Jamie Oliver were dangerously high in salt, containing more than 1.5g per 100g. Eighty-three per cent were also found to be high in both fat and saturated fat, and all were found to be low in fibre.
Meanwhile, Royal's cottage pie, sold by the likes of Sainsbury's, topped the list for salt content at 6.12g. Royal also took another top spot with its Chicken Tikka Masala with Saffron Rice which had almost 4.7g of salt per serving. Iceland's Taste of Italy Vegetable Lasagne was another high scorer with 3.9g of salt per serving, over half of an adult's daily recommended salt limit. By supermarket, Iceland had the most salty ready meals with 86 per cent of its products high in salt. This was followed by Aldi (70 per cent), Lidl (64 per cent), and M&S and Sainsbury's (54 per cent each).
Morrisons performed the best of out of the supermarkets, with only 40 per cent of its ready meals high in salt. Action on Salt also found substantial variation on salt content within different types of ready meals. For example, Sainsbury's Free From Spaghetti Bolognese contained 4.35g of salt per serving. This was 8.5 times more salt than another product Kirsty's Pasta Bolognese Gluten Free which only had 0.5g of salt. Trendy ready meals made by Charlie Bingham weren't far behind Jamie Oliver's in terms of salt content with 91 per cent high in salt.
Of the 1,511 ready meals analysed Action of Salt found 56 per cent were high in salt, 42 per cent high in saturated fat and 71 per cent low in fibre. One in five were found in be both high in fat and salt simultaneously. Action on Salt's head of impact and research Sonia Pombo said voluntary targets for producers to reduce salt content introduced in 2006 were clearly not working. 'With over half of ready meals found to be unacceptably high in salt, consumers' health are being put at serious risk, often without realising it,' she said. 'It should not be this hard to eat healthily. 'We now need the government to stop pandering to industry interests and introduce mandatory salt reduction targets with real consequences for non-compliance.'
Dr Pauline Swift, chair of the charity Blood Pressure UK, also called for action. 'Excess salt in our food is directly linked to raised blood pressure–the biggest risk factor for strokes, heart disease and kidney disease–all of which are completely avoidable,' she said. 'The government must act now to enforce stronger salt reduction targets and protect public health before even more lives are needlessly lost.' Professor Bryan Williams OBE, chief medical and scientific officer at the British Heart Foundation, added: 'This concerning data shows it is not always straightforward for people to find ready meals which are low in salt. 'Food companies must do more to reduce salt in their products, so that the healthy options are more easily available.'
The NHS warns that too much fat in your diet, especially saturated fats, can raise your cholesterol, which in turn increases the risk of heart disease. On the other hand, getting enough fibre, also called roughage, helps with digestion, preventing constipation and is also linked with a lower risk of heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and bowel cancer. Ready meals are now considered a staple of the modern British diet with surveys suggesting three out of four people consuming at least one per week. The Department of Health and Social Care was contacted for comment. Action on Salt's analysis of ready meals was based on products surveyed in January of this year.
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