Salt Content In Ready Made Salads
Ready-made salads ‘have as much salt as fries’ report The Daily Mail
When I first read this headline I was shocked. The Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) did a survey of 81 salads sold in UK high streets, and found that two of them contained as much as 6 grammes of salt. The recommended daily intake of salt is 6g!! Here’s a summary of their findings:
- 20% of salads contained 3g of salt (the same amount as in a Big Mac and large fries)
- 40% of salads contained over 2g of salt
- McDonald’s Crispy chicken salad with pasta plus low fat Newman’s Own light French dressing and croutons contains 5.9g of salt
- McDonald’s Crispy chicken ranch salad plus low fat Newman’s Own light Caesar dressing and croutons contains6.2g of salt
Surprising, eh?
Surely these retailers know that the majority of people are eating salads because they believe them to be healthy. Why are they adding so much salt??
If you’re struggling to lose weight with your diet, despite eating all these so-called “healthy” salads, you may well be retaining water, as this is a common side effect of a high salt intake. Long-term effects of consuming too much salt is having a greater risk of developing high blood pressure (this is the biggest cause of strokes and heart attacks)
Fausta Cerezo-Gomez, Food Liaison Officer for CASH says that “reducing our average salt intake to 6g per day, which is the Department of Health and Food Standards Agency target, would save 70,000 people from developing strokes and heart attacks, 35,000 of which are fatal,”
So if you’re going to buy a packaged salad, the healthiest is Burger King’s LA garden salad which contains just 0.08g of salt