A single sandwich from upmarket bakery Gail’s has more salt than nearly five McDonald’s cheeseburgers or 10 rashers of bacon, say campaigners.<\/p>\n
Their smoked chicken Caesar club contains 6.88g of salt – more than the limit of 6g of salt that adults are recommended to stick to in a day.<\/p>\n
Action on Salt & Sugar, which analysed 546 sandwiches, said it was \u00ab\u00a0alarming\u00a0\u00bb how much salt was in them and that people should not be exposed to a \u00ab\u00a0hidden health risk every time they buy lunch\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Gail’s has been approached for comment.<\/p>\n
Too much salt leads to high blood pressure, which is known as \u00ab\u00a0the silent killer\u00a0\u00bb as it raises the risk of heart attacks and stroke.<\/p>\n
Action on Salt & Sugar, based at Queen Mary University of London, found more than one in 10 sandwiches exceeded government salt targets and 44% would have to carry a red warning label on the packet due to their salt content.<\/p>\n
It said Gail’s smoked chicken Caesar club also had over 1,000 calories and 90% of an adult’s daily saturated fat intake.<\/p>\n
But while it topped the salt charts, the campaign group said other sandwiches were also \u00ab\u00a0loaded with dangerously high levels of hidden salt\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Other salty sarnies highlighted by the report included a Gail’s smoked salmon bagel containing 4.2g of salt, Paul’s rosette cheese salami gherkin containing 4.19g of salt, and Pret A Manger’s ham & grev\u00e9 baguette with 3.85g.<\/p>\n
Sonia Pombo from Action on Salt & Sugar said people chose sandwiches for their \u00ab\u00a0simplicity, convenience and affordability, but what they’re actually eating can be a full day’s worth of salt hidden between two slices of bread\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
She said it was \u00ab\u00a0frankly unacceptable that some companies continue to sell sandwiches that exceed an adult’s daily limit in one go\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
The campaign group said high levels of salt were not inevitable, comparing a Pret A Manager chicken sandwich that contained 2.22g of salt with a similar one from Greggs that had only 1.1g. Or a pair of all-day breakfast sandwiches where Sainsbury’s kept the salt content to 1.54g while M&S used 2.65g.<\/p>\n
An estimated 11.5 billion sandwiches are eaten in the UK every year.<\/p>\n
Action on Salt & Sugar urged people to check the salt content on the packet, but said it was down to government to do more.<\/p>\n
It said salt was \u00ab\u00a0increasingly being overlooked\u00a0\u00bb as the focus had shifted to tackling obesity and that voluntary targets for manufacturers to reduce salt content in food was a \u00ab\u00a0failure\u00a0\u00bb.<\/p>\n
Dr Pauline Swift, a consultant nephrologist and chair of Action on Salt & Sugar, added: \u00ab\u00a0Salt reduction is one of the quickest, cheapest and most effective ways to improve public health, yet progress has stalled.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n
Dell Stanford, a senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, said: \u00ab\u00a0This analysis shouldn’t put you off from enjoying a shop-bought sandwich occasionally, but there are ways to make your lunchtime staple healthier.<\/p>\n
\u00ab\u00a0Check the label and look for a sandwich with less salt and saturated fat, and ideally with lean protein and more fibre.\u00a0\u00bb<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A single sandwich from upmarket bakery Gail’s has more salt than nearly five McDonald’s cheeseburgers or 10 rashers of bacon, say campaigners. Their smoked chicken Caesar club contains 6.88g of salt – more than the limit of 6g of salt that adults are recommended to stick to in a day. Action on Salt & Sugar, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-10136","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10136","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10136"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10136\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10136"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10136"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placedesnations.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10136"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}