Consensus Action on Salt and Health Survey Reveals Hidden danger in half term “treats”

A Pizza Hut meal can contain four times a child’s daily salt limit

Parents taking their children to a fast food restaurant over half term could unknowingly be giving them huge amounts of salt – in many cases well over their maximum daily recommended limit in one meal – according to new research published today.

Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) surveyed four of the UK’s favourite fast food restaurants and found shockingly high levels of salt in some family, individual and children’s meal options.

A total of 346 individual food and drink items and 264 advertised meal combinations were surveyed from Burger King, KFC, McDonald’s and Pizza Hut .

A family of four sharing one Cheesy Bites Meat Feast, one Medium Pan Super Supreme, one Garlic Bread, one Potato Wedges, one Saucy Chicken Wings (Buffalo) and four individual Madagasca Vanilla Cheesecakes from Pizza Hut could eat a staggering 12.3g of salt each . That’s over twice the recommended daily maximum limit for an adult (6g), and almost two and a half times the limit for a 7-10 year old (5g) in one meal. If a 6 year old were sharing this meal they could be eating over four times their daily limit (3g).

A KFC Deluxe Boneless Box shared between four could contain 5.2g of salt per person . This is almost a whole day’s salt limit for an adult and over the recommended maximum daily limit for a child. A family of four sharing a KFC FaConsensus Action on Salt and Healthmily Feast could eat 4.7g of salt each .

Surprisingly, the majority of advertised standard size individual ‘meal deals’ from Burger King and KFC and all those from McDonald’s had lower levels of salt compared to the lowest salt individual meals from Pizza Hut. This was still true when the desserts available at the Pizza Hut were omitted from the equations.

However, some individual meal deals still contained a lot of salt for a single meal. For example at KFC an individual ‘meal deal’ could contain as much as 6.3g salt and at Pizza Hut a meal combination could contain as much as 9.7g salt . Alarmingly the lowest salt meal combination for one person available at Pizza Hut contained 4.7g salt , nearly 80% of the recommended upper limit for salt intake in adults, compared to the lowest surveyed which provided only 0.8g salt (McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets Meal with salad) .

The CASH research included 21 menu items and 48 meal combinations aimed specifically at children. The salt content of the meal combinations varied from 4.3g of salt in a Pizza Hut children’s meal (nearly 50% more than the 3g upper daily limit for a child of 4-6years) to 0.6g in a McDonald’s Happy Meal of chicken nuggets and a fruit bag .

“Whilst we acknowledge that there are low salt options available at some fast food outlets, the likelihood is that most children going to McDonald’s or Burger King will ask for a burger or chicken nuggets and fries. If they are taken to KFC they will want chicken and fries, and at Pizza Hut will choose pizza,” said Carrie Bolt, CASH Researcher, who surveyed the various meals. “We found that a children’s burger meal contains around 1.9g salt , equivalent to around two-thirds of the upper limit of salt intake for children aged 4-6 years (3g). A typical chicken nugget meal contains around 1.5g and a typical children’s Pizza Hut pizza meal contains 2.3g .

“We are concerned that Pizza Hut and KFC provide no information in the restaurant at point of sale to tell parents how much salt is in the food,” continued Carrie Bolt. “There is no way for people to make informed choices before they buy. We are pleased that McDonald’s have labelling on their packaging and that Burger King provides leaflets giving the amount of sodium per portion. It is also true that all four outlets surveyed had information on their websites, but we would like to see all fast food outlets displaying nutritional information where people make their food choices. All the major supermarkets and most food manufacturers have made great progress in providing clear on-pack salt labelling in the last few years. We would now like to see the same effort being made by restaurants and fast food companies.”
“It is over four years since the maximum daily limits for salt were established for adults and children ,” said Professor Graham MacGregor, Chairman of CASH and Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine from the Medical School at St George’s Hospital, London, “and yet this survey shows that the salt levels in some of these meals are staggeringly high. Pizza Hut’s own website states that adults should eat no more than 6g of salt a day and children less , so how can these companies justify selling food that contains more than the maximum daily limit for adults and children in a single meal?

“Salt acts as a long-term toxin that puts up blood pressure in both children and adults and thereby causes strokes and heart attacks. We know that reducing salt intakes to below the recommended 6g a day for adults and less for children reduces the risk of having a stroke by a quarter and heart attacks by one fifth, so I would really urge people to choose lower salt options whenever they go out for a meal.”

“If you are taking your children out for a ‘treat’ this half term I would say it is better to go to McDonald’s or Burger King rather than Pizza Hut which serves food outrageously high in unnecessary salt,” Jo Butten, CASH Nutritionist advises. “Opt for meals without added cheese and bacon and remember that drinks such as milkshakes and desserts including cheesecake and muffins can contribute quite a lot to your salt intake

“In the meantime, anyone who would like to know how much salt their favourite fast-food meal contains can check our website www.actiononsalt.org.uk .

We have also highlighted the lower salt choices in each of the outlets we surveyed. Heart disease and stroke still kill and disable more people in this country every year than any other disease or condition. Thousands of lives can be saved each year if we just choose lower salt foods.”