Third of children’s restaurant meals have too much salt

MORE than a third of children’s main meals sold in restaurants still exceed the government’s maximum salt target, a survey suggests.

Action on Salt found 37 per cent of children’s main courses sold in the ‘out of home’ sector — which covers restaurants — exceeded 1.71g of salt content, the end of year target. Guidelines say children aged four to six should eat no more than 3g of salt a day in total. Almost 50 per cent of children’s restaurant meals provide at least half of a child’s daily limit, with some dishes containing more than a child’s entire day’s worth of salt in just one meal.

Of the 37 restaurants included in the research, 29 provided the correct calorie nutrition information. Gourmet Burger Kitchen had the highest overall salt content in their children’s meals – averaging 3.06g per meal. By comparison, the restaurant with the lowest average salt content in children’s meals was Subway at 0.79g.

The survey found similar meals had varying levels of salt depending on the company in question, such as sausage meals from Hungry Horse (3.59g) containing almost four times more salt than those served at Wetherspoon (1g).

Just six restaurants had their entire menu below the salt target: Burger King, Ikea, Pret A Manger, Subway, Toby Carvery and YO! Sushi. Graham MacGregor, professor of cardiovascular medicine at Queen Mary University of London and chairman of Action on Salt, said: ‘ Children in the UK are eating too much salt.’

John Maingay, from the British Heart Foundation, said: ‘If the food industry will not lower the salt content of their products, the Government will need to step in to protect the health of future generations.’