This year’s National Salt Awareness Week encourages people to take control of their salt consumption, after new research exposes the salt hidden in restaurant meals

It still shocks me how many people I meet who, despite suffering from high blood pressure or having had a stroke, are still not aware of the hidden amount of salt they eat. There is no doubt that we are all consuming too much of the stuff and it is damaging our health. Salt puts up our blood pressure, which leads to strokes and heart attacks, and is linked to kidney disease, stomach cancer and osteoporosis. To raise awareness of the serious damages caused by its over-consumption, Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) organises a ‘Salt Awareness Week’ every year.

This year’s National Salt Awareness Week (11-17 March 2013) is called ‘Less Salt Please’. It aims to encourage people to take control of the salt in their own food preparation, by reading the labels to choose tastier ingredients which act as a substitute, as well as reducing salt during cooking and at the table. However, while we can take control of our salt intake when preparing food at home, when eating out it can be difficult to know where to start.
Our busy lifestyles mean that we are eating out more often. So to mark National Salt Awareness Week, CASH has revealed the shocking amount of salt found in restaurant meals. CASH surveyed 644 restaurant meals from 29 popular high street and celebrity restaurants, fast food and cafes chains; half were high in salt and would be labelled with a red traffic light label in a supermarket.
A selection of three main meals from six celebrity chef restaurants were analysed for their salt content. These included Brasserie Blanc (Raymond Blanc), Dinner (Heston Blumenthal), Frankie’s (Marco Pierre White), Jamie’s Italian (Jamie Oliver), Fifteen (Jamie Oliver) and Savoy Grill (Gordon Ramsay). From the celebrity chef meals tested, on average Jamie’s Italian had the highest level of salt in their three dishes while Heston’s Dinner was shown to be the lowest, all below 1.5g of salt per dish.
Surprisingly, celebrity chef restaurants and high street chain restaurants both came out higher for salt content than cafes and fast food chains. Although this is partly due to portion size, in my opinion, chefs shouldn’t need to mask the real taste of food with salt. They are the experts after all and they should have the culinary skills to make delicious food using herbs and spices.
Alongside the restaurant food analysis, public research undertaken for Salt Awareness Week found that more than half of people (54 per cent) find restaurant meals too salty, and 9 out of 10 people believe that restaurants and cafes should let them choose if they want to add salt to their meal or not. After all you can add salt on to your food but you can’t take it out.
I was pleased to see café chains, such as Costa and Pret a Manger, appearing to have made some progress and are now – at least – providing labelling online so customers can plan their meals ahead. Of the fast foods analysed (McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC, Subway, Pizza Hut and Domino’s), Pizza Hut was shown to be the worst; 93 per cent of dishes analysed had over 2.4g of salt, although portion sizes were generally larger. Subway came out on top with less than 1 in 5 meals getting a red traffic light label for salt.
Here are some surprising swaps for you to consider:

*Low salt soy sauce is available
 
In my opinion, consumers have the right to know what is in their food. Chefs, restaurants and cafés also have a moral obligation to ensure that what they put in our food is not seriously damaging to our health.
So next time you eat out, ask for “less salt please”. Tell the waiter if you find your meal too salty and while you’re at it, tell them to take the salt shakers away so you won’t be compelled to use them!

Image from: http://www.manchestersfinest.com/eating-in-manchester/restaurants/jamies-italian/