Lunch box shock over salt levels

IN a bizarre twist, school lunch box sweet treats have been exposed as containing record levels of salt.

They contain so much salt that a child would exceed their entire sodium intake for the day by eating a single choc chip muffin.

Obesity campaigners LiveLighter checked the salt content of 20 popular lunch box snacks and have revealed the top 10 saltiest lunch box snacks on the market.

The worst of the salty offenders turned out to be a sweet treat – Woolworths Select Double Choc Chip muffin with 607mg of sodium per serve. This exceeds the daily salt intake recommended for children aged 4-8 – and is twothirds of the daily salt intake of a child aged 9-13.

Coles banana bread slice with 393mg of sodium per serve had the second highest salt content among the lunch box snacks tested.

The next worst offenders were “fake cheese” flavoured crisps, crackers and dippers, which had the highest sodium content per 100g.

Livelighter was urging parents to steer clear of giving their kids Cheezels (1200mg of sodium per 100g), Woolworths Crispbread & Cheese Cheddar Dip (1100mg sodium per 100g) and Coles Cheese Spread & Crispbread Snacks (1100mg sodium per 100g).

Each of these products contain nearly a third of the recommended daily sodium intake for 9 to 13-year-olds and it was only the small pack sizes (25g) that meant they were not as bad as the muffins and banana bread.

Foods with healthy salt levels contain less than 120mg of sodium per 100g.

Livelighter campaign manager Alison Mcaleese said preparing a healthy lunch box was easy if you included yoghurt, fruit or dips with crackers or vegie sticks.