Pubs serve salty food to encourage drinking, says health group
3 June, 2009
A three-course managed pub meal can contain more than the daily maximum
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."
Readers' comments
A month ago,a paper by the medical profession recommended all people over 50 to take aspirin to cut heart attacks and strokes ,this week another report by a different medical group says given aspirin could cause more damage than its worth,no wonder people are confused,pass the salt
Great to have Fairpints opinion on this crucial subject. Just as well there's nothing more important to comment on.
Health police have it all wrong again! The salt is there to replenish the salts lost from the body as drinkers work up a sweat sinking their pints. Then of course, when the valve is opened and the visits to the loo start, more swaet is secreted going to and fro, as well as salts lost in the urine itself. The salt in pub food then assists in alleviating the onset of cramp on the long zig-zag (or is it zag-zig) home.
In my boozer, back in the good old days of "Sunday Hours" we always put out hot roast potatoes with a liberal coating of salt to make the men , I say men, because the ladys then stayed at home making the Sunday Roast, thirsty and would sup more ale ( before the days of fizzy wimps drinks called lager). We called it "retailing" back in those days when I was a chairman of the local LVA branch.
Next on the agenda will of course be ready salted and salt and vinegar crisps with salted peanuts. Now they WERE sold to encourage a thirst. Ken Nason
Funny but the first thing i do when eating out ,is look for the salt ,i like salt, in some of the bigger chains salt is an essential ,giving the tastless food they sell
I've conducted my own little survey on all these do-gooders and the findings are revealing! 100% of them need to stop worrying about the rest of us, their stress levels are thermometer busting, well over the RDA for stress levels, even for those who avoid the occasional pork pie! They're worrying themselves into an early grave! Desist for your own benefit!
It's about the factories where the food is made and how it is made. As Ken Nason points out surely selecting food for mass distribution is more about cost and taste than about the need for low salt intake by anyone. If it tastes ok and is cheap roll it our across the estate.
Extra salt in pub food so punters buy more booze? No s**t Sherlock !!!
Heaven save us form this bunch of controlling meglamaniacs. Firstly it is they that create(invent) the measure of salt (or alcohol units) and then proclaim anything other than this is BAD BAD BAD!!!! Then they crusade against anything and anyone who contradicts this with no science at all. They link it to every other BAD thing they have invented and invent conspiracies against their good works.. Salt to increase drinking. I can just imagine that being brought up in the M&B board room sales meeting. Sorry as most of the perpritrators mentioned are corporate catering units who source most of their food from the processed food supply chains I think that the fault lies with the manufacturers not the menu builders. Ken Nason
It's no good blameing the publicans for this, the ones of us that are left are being bullied out of business by pubco's and MP's, the pressure to take more money is increased massively on a daily basis, it's obvious that the beneficiaries of this should get off our backs!