Pasta Sauce survey reveals huge variations between brands
12th November 2009
- There are large variations in the salt content of pasta sauces
- Research has shown that branded pasta sauces often contain more salt than supermarket own-brand sauces
Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) surveyed branded and supermarket own label pasta sauces from the eight major UK retailers; Tesco, ASDA, Sainsbury's Waitrose, Co-operative, Marks & Spencer, Somerfield and Morrisons. 190 products in total were looked at including tomato based sauces with no cheese or meat added, green pesto sauces and carbonara sauces.
There is a wide range of salt contents between the products, and a huge 30 fold difference in the salt content between the highest and lowest tomato based sauces was found. Branded products were found to have an average of 25% more salt compared to the supermarket own branded products.
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.
Better still, making your own pasta sauces at home can be simple, fun, and should also mean that your meal is lower in salt. We’ve developed simple, tasty low salt recipes for pesto, carbonara, and tomato-based sauces, none of which contains more than half a gram of salt per serving!
Please click on the links below to find out the salt content of your favourite pasta sauces.
Click here for a spreadsheet with all the survey data (Excel) (Word)
Click here for full press release
Click here for interview on BBC's 5 Live
Click here to see the best and worst products in each category (Excel) (Word)
Click here for low salt pasta sauce recipes:
Salt content of popular pasta sauce ingredients:
(If you cannot open PDF files, please contact us and we can send you a word version)