Food f irms won’t join once-a-week warning

They claim their dishes ARE safe to eat every day

FOOD giants are refusing to follow the example of the pasta sauce maker that is telling its customers to eat some of its products only once a week.

Their defiance came after the maker of Dolmio and Uncle Ben’s chose to put the warning on its savoury cooking sauces because of their potentially unhealthy contents.

Brands sold by major supermarkets such as Asda and Tesco and those endorsed by celebrity chefs Jamie Oliver and Loyd Grossman all have similar quantities of sugar, salt and fat. Despite this, the firms which make them insisted that their prod-ucts are fit to eat every day.

On Thursday Mars Food, which makes Dolmio and Uncle Ben’s sauces, said some of its biggest brands will have a ‘once a week’ health warning put on them, while others are suitable for ‘everyday’ use.

The move was cautiously welcomed by health campaigners who have demanded manufacturers reduce salt, sugar and fat as they are linked to high blood pressure, obes-ity and diabetes.

But other firms making foods with similar levels of salt, sugar and fat declined to fol-low the lead of Mars which has said it will advise consumers that, for example, its Red Lasagne pasta sauce – with 0.82g of salt and 6.4g of sugar per 100g – is for occasional use only.

Premier Foods which markets sauces under the Homepride, Loyd Grossman and Sharwood’s brands, said it had no plans to advise cus-tomers to stop eating its sauces.

Homepride creamy tomato and bacon pasta bake sauce has 7.9g of fat per 100g, and 1.01g of salt. Loyd Grossman Tikka Masala has 10.6g of fat per 100g, 9g of sugar and 0.83g of salt. A spokesman for Premier Foods said the company had reduced salt levels in its products by 30 per cent and added: ‘We were one of the first companies to introduce front of pack colour-coded labelling. So we are transparent about the levels of dif-ferent nutrients and whether they are low medium or high.’

Jamie Oliver’s Tomato and Basil sauce has 0.83g of salt per 100g. His pesto sauce is even saltier at 1g per 100g. A spokesman for the chef – famous for his campaigns to help get Britain eating healthily – said both products fall within Department of Health guidelines for salt. The rec-ommended daily allowance for adults of salt is 6g. For sugar it is 90g and for fat 70g, of which saturated fat is 20g. According to health guidelines most Britons eat too much salt – around 8.8g a day on average.

Food makers in Britain have com-mitted to reducing salt levels. Cam-paign group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) said Jamie Oliver’s sauces had reduced their salt content in the past few years as had 75 per cent of manufacturers.

But the chef’s sauces are still salt-ier than the average tomato sauce, according to CASH figures. The average salt content of a tomato-based pasta sauce is 0.69g per 100g, down from 0.94g in 2009.

A company spokesman said Jamie Oliver Licensing Ltd is committed to meeting the Government’s ‘salt reduction pledge’. Sainsbury’s declined to say it would follow Mars Food’s lead. A spokesman said: ‘We provide clear nutritional labelling on all of our own brand food prod-ucts, and were the first to introduce front-of-pack, traffic light labelling.’

A Tesco spokesman said: ‘Our food is clearly labelled with its nutritional content so customers can make informed choices about what to buy. We have removed thousands of tons of salt, fat and sugar from the food we sell.’

Sonia Pombo, a nutritionist for CASH, questioned whether Mars Food’s decision was an attempt to avoid reducing salt levels by putting the onus on the consumer. ‘If they are using it as an excuse not to reformu-late, then it is a step back,’ she said.

According to CASH, reducing salt intake by just 1g per person each day will prevent 4,147 prema-ture deaths.