Celebrity sauces 'have more salt than sea water'

Published on Wednesday 11 November 2009 21:47

CELEBRITY chefs were criticised by food experts yesterday after a survey found their products topped the list of saltiest pasta sauces – some of which contained "more salt than sea water".

One portion of Jamie Oliver's Spicy Olive and Garlic pasta sauce contains 5.3g of salt – nearly all of an adult's recommended daily allowance and the same amount as ten packets of ready salted crisps.

Former Masterchef presenter Loyd Grossman's branded Carbonara sauce was the fourth worst in its category.

Oliver's Fiery Tomato & Chilli and Red Onion & Rosemary sauces were also among the top five, while his Green Pesto sauce had 3g of salt per 100g, making it second worst offender in the pesto category.

In contrast, Weight Watchers' Roasted Garlic pasta sauce contains just 0.1g of salt per 100g, a 30th of the Jamie Oliver sauce's salt level.

The Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) survey examined 190 branded and supermarket-own sauces and found that celebrity and branded sauces were among the worst offenders when it came to salt.

Cash chairman Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine at St George's Hospital Medical School in London, said one of the problems was the fact that celebrity chefs were salt "addicts" and as a consequence many may have lost the ability to properly gauge the saltiness of their foods.

He added: "Atlantic seawater has 2.5g of salt per 100g. A couple of Jamie's sauces are even higher than that.

"To be fair to Jamie Oliver, we have heard that he may reformulate the sauces – but he hasn't, and they have been like this for two years, since he launched them."

The results showed that other household brands also contained high levels of salt. When combined, sauces including Dolmio, Ragu, Jamie Oliver and Loyd Grossman averaged 1.17g of salt per 100g each.

This is in stark contrast to many supermarket own brands, which Mr MacGregor said proved that it was not necessary to add excessive salt in order to create a tasty sauce.

A spokesman for Oliver said: "Since the spring, our team has been working on new lower-salt recipes and these will be available for supermarkets to order in from early December. All of the new pasta sauces will be within the FSA (Food Standards Agency] 2012 guidelines for salt content."

The Cash survey also criticised the way some producers failed to carry clear labelling, preventing health-conscious members of the public from checking their salt intake.

More than a third (73 of the 190 products) did not provide salt or sodium data per portion, and more than a quarter (52 products) gave no portion size information.

A spokesperson for the FSA said: "The Cash survey reinforces the agency's work and campaigning on salt and echoes our advice that shoppers need to check labels

to help them reach our recommendation that adults eat a maximum of 6g a day."

The largest range of salt content was seen in the tomato-based pasta sauces.

Among those surveyed were products from Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda, Morrison's, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Somerfield and the Co-op.