Salt Awareness Week 2012 is highlighting that a diet high in salt can lead to raised blood pressure, tripling the risk of having a stroke. As 75% of the salt we eat is hidden in our food, Cash are urging manufacturers to stop hiding salt, and fat, in our food.
“It is surprising there is still so much salt hidden in every day foods” says Katharine Jenner, campaign director of Cash. “It should be up to us how much salt we eat, but whilst there is so much salt in our food, people are unable to choose a healthier diet and are therefore putting themselves at risk of a stroke. This is why we are highlighting hidden sources of salt in our food for Salt Awareness Week.”
The survey looked at 199 margherita and pepperoni pizzas, analysed from local takeaways, pizza chains and leading supermarkets across the country, and showed takeaway pizzas were the highest in salt, containing up to two and a half times more salt than the average supermarket pizza (2.73g vs 1.08g salt/100g). One takeaway pizza outlet was found to be selling a pizza saltier than sea water, containing 2.73g per 100g.
Top five saltiest takeaway pizzas are:
Half of all the takeaway pizzas surveyed contain your entire 6g maximum daily recommendation for salt per pizza. Even worse, if you were to eat an entire pepperoni pizza from ‘The Adam & Eve’ or ‘La Vera Italia’, you would be consuming more than 10g of salt, the research shows.
“It’s a national disgrace that our health is put at risk; the government is not taking enough action to reduce the amount of salt in the takeaway sector. The supermarkets have made the same pizzas with much less salt – showing how easy it would be for the whole sector to make big salt reductions” says Professor Graham MacGregor, Wolfson Institute, chairman of Cash.
“Salt puts up our blood pressure – the highest risk factor for stroke. Reducing our intake would save thousands of people suffering and dying from a stroke.”
Many supermarkets have made great progress in removing salt from their pizzas, for instance, Morrison’s had five of the 10 lowest salt own-brand pizzas surveyed.
However, despite containing a third less salt on average compared to takeaways (1.08g/100g compared to 1.57g/100g), many supermarket pizzas are still classified as ‘unhealthy’; none of the surveyed supermarket pizzas were found to be ‘green’ (low) in salt, fat or saturated fat.
In fact, whilst less than one in five (16%) supermarket pizzas would get a ‘red’ (high) traffic light label for salt, two in three (69%) would get a ‘red’ for saturated fat, showing there is still progress to be made. The government has called for trans fats should be removed from all food by the end of 2012, yet four out of five (84%) of the takeaway pizzas still contained trans fats.
Top five saltiest pizzas from supermarkets:
A Pizza Express margherita pizza from a supermarket contains almost half (43%) the amount of salt per 100g than the restaurant takeaway equivalent (0.85g vs 1.493g salt per 100g). Pizza Express recommend on pack that you only eat half of the supermarket version whereas you would eat the whole restaurant takeaway version.
Hannah Brinsden, Cash Nutritionist, said: “It makes no sense that one pizza can contain more than your entire daily recommendation for salt, whilst another could be included as part of a healthy balanced diet.
“Whilst a lot of the salt is hidden in the pizza base and the cheese, you can still choose to have a healthier pizza by watching out for high salt pizza toppings such as bacon, pepperoni, anchovies, and olives and making sure you check the labels when shopping.”
Source: Cash
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