Pubs serve salty food to encourage drinking, says health group
Pub groups including Mitchells & Butlers (M&B), JD Wetherspoon and Young's have been criticised by a health campaign group which analysed salt levels in samples of meals.
The Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) group is backing calls for all pub menus to feature nutritional information. Its chairman has also accused pubs of serving salty meals to encourage customers to drink more.
The survey was carried out for CASH by environmental health officers from boroughs across London to check 57 menu items from 16 pub chains were analysed for their salt, fat, saturated fat and calorie content.
In some cases, the study found that a three course pub meal contained more than the daily maximum salt limit for an adult.
CASH said that levels of saturated fat in the meals tested were also often very high, with one dish containing more than double the recommended maximum daily intake for women.
More that half, 55 per cent, of the main course dishes contained 3g of salt or more, half the maximum recommended daily intake, and 91 per cent contained more than 2g of salt.
A third of the starters surveyed (35 per cent) contained more than 3g of salt and half (50 per cent) contained more than 2g of salt. A third of desserts contained more than 1g of salt, equivalent to two packets of crisps.
Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of CASH and professor of cardiovascular medicine at St George's Hospital in London, said: "These high salt pub meals make us very thirsty, encouraging us to drink more."
With food retailers in the UK having agreed to new targets for ready meal salt and fat content by 2012, MacGregor called for the same targets to be imposed by the Food Standrads Agency on all meals eaten outside the home.
He said: "If we are to reduce the numbers of people needlessly suffering and dying from heart attacks and strokes, then we all need to reduce our salt intake. Too much saturated fat leads to raised cholesterol, which in turn is also a major risk factor for heart disease and stroke."
Findings reported by CASH included:
- The saltiest main course dish found was hunter's chicken, from M&B brand Vintage Inns' Ye Olde Cherry Tree pub in Enfield, with 5.78g of salt. This is just short of the 6g maximum daily intake for an adult
- A three-course meal at Ye Olde Cherry Tree of tomato and basil soup (1.45g salt) followed by the hunter's chicken (5.78g salt) and sticky toffee pudding (1.05g salt) would contain a total of 8.28g of salt, well over the maximum daily limit
- The saltiest starter surveyed was spicy coated king prawns from J D Wetherspoons' Moon & Stars in Havering, with 4.4g of salt per serving
- A customer eating the spicy coated king prawns at the Moon & Stars, followed by fish and chips and chocolate fudge cake would eat a total of 7.88g of salt
- Sticky Toffee Pudding from the J D Wetherspoon Goldengrove pub in Newham contained 1.95g of salt, equivalent to almost a third of the daily salt limit for an adult.
- A pasta dish with chargrilled vegetables and pine nuts from Youngs' the Beaufort in Barnet contained 40.9g of saturated fat, twice the maximum recommended intake for a woman
- A white chocolate cheesecake with winter berries served with vanilla ice cream from Slug and Lettuce, near Waterloo, contained 33.2g saturated fat, more than the maximum recommended daily intake for a man.
A spokesman for Wetherspoon said the group's own independent analysis showed a far lower salt content for the king prawn starter criticised.
He added: "On the general principle, we already give customers nutritional information about dishes on our menus - that's available in our pubs and on the website.
"Like other operators, we have been moving over time to reduce the salt and fat content of food. Ultimately though, we give customers the information and they make the choice about what they eat."
