Christmas menus full of salt
9th December 2009
- High levels of salt found in the Christmas-themed menus of some cafés and fast food chains
- A Festive meal from McDonald's contains more than the daily recommended maximum for salt
With Christmas fast approaching, Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) surveyed Christmas menus from leading fast food outlets, cafes and supermarkets including; ASDA; Sainsbury's; Waitrose; Marks & Spencer; Co-operative; Marks & Spencer; Caffe Nero; Costa; EAT; Subway; Pret-A-Manger and McDonalds. 87 products in total were looked at including sandwiches, burgers, salads and cakes.
A wide range of salt contents between the products was found. One sandwich (EAT. Christmas Full Works Sandwich) contained as much as 4.2g of salt, 4 times more salt than the lowest salt sandwich found (Sainsbury’s Smoked Turkey and Cranberry Sandwich). Supermarket sandwiches were found to be lower in salt, and to have much clearer and comprehensive labelling compared to the cafes and fast food chains.
A meal from McDonalds, containing the ‘Great Cheese and Bacon’ burger with a side dish of ‘Cheese Melt Wedges’ and the festive dip contains a total of 6.1g of salt. This is more than the entire adult daily maximum recommended intake for salt in one meal and over double the recommendation for a child.
This survey has emphasised the importance of checking labels when shopping, as the huge difference in salt content between similar products means that guessing simply isn’t an option.
Click here to see the best and worst products: Savoury Sweet
Better still, making your sandwiches at home is easy and should mean that your lunch is lower in salt. We’ve put together simple, tasty low salt sandwich fillings for you to enjoy!
Click here for low salt lunch ideas
Click here for a homemade burger recipe
Please click on the links below to find out the salt content of your favourite high street sandwich.
Click here for a spreadsheet with all the survey data (Excel) (Word)
Click here for full press release