18 Jun 2010 --- In the largest survey of its kind, CASH (Consensus Action on Salt and Health) surveyed 603 barbecue food products such as burgers, sausages, crisps, salads and dips from the 7 leading supermarkets and the leading brands.  The research highlighted just how much salt is unknowingly being eaten when you have a barbecue. 

In 2009, according to the National BBQ Association, the UK held over 120 million barbecues.   With The World Cup in progress, and the weather hotting up, even more barbecues are expected this year.

The survey found that a ‘typical barbecue meal’ could add up to as much as 12.11g of salt more than double your daily recommended maximum of 6g a day. Yet when looking across the range of supermarkets and brands, the lowest typical barbecue meal contained nearly TEN grams less salt at 2.75g, highlighting the huge difference of the salt content in similar-looking products. 

A ‘typical barbecue meal’ was defined by CASH as; a hotdog with mustard, a burger with cheese and BBQ sauce, a piece of marinated meat, a helping of coleslaw and potato salad and plain crisps with dips.

In fact, you could have TWO THIRDS of your maximum daily salt intake with just one burger; a beef burger (Tesco Barbecue 4 Beef Ultimate Burgers; 2g per burger), in a bread roll (Warburton’s 4 Large White Rolls; 0.95g per roll), eaten with a cheese slice (The Cooperative 10 Cheese Singles; 0.7g per slice) and a squirt of BBQ Sauce (HP Original BBQ Sauce Classic; 0.38g per 15g portion) comes to over 4g of salt, even without having any extras such as crisps and salads. 

However, if you swap the Tesco’s burger for either one of Birdseye’s 4 Beef Burgers with Fresh Onion or one of The Cooperative’s 8 Beef Burgers with Onion (both 0.4g per burger), and swap the HP BBQ Sauce for Tesco’s Reduced Sugar & Salt Ketchup (trace salt per 15g) you could save 2g of salt and still have a delicious burger.

A shopping basket of barbecue products from each of the supermarkets could easily exceed the daily maximum of 6g of salt [Table 2].  Tesco’s, Asda and Morrison’s all had a typical barbecue meal available containing over 9g of salt; TESCO had the highest products available overall, adding up to 9.27g of salt [Table 3].  Sainsbury’s had the lowest products available overall, with less than 4g of salt for their lowest typical barbecue meal.

The extras, such as crisps and dips, in a barbecue also add up quickly.  By dipping Morrisons The Best Sea Salted Handcooked Crisps (0.75g per 50g) into Discovery Hot Salsa Dip (0.75g per 50g), you would be eating 15 times more salt than if you dipped Kettle Chips No Added Salt (0.10 per 50g) into Morrisons Tomato Salsa (trace per 50g). 

In addition to the large variation in salt content, unclear labelling on the packaging combined with the often unrealistic portion sizes makes it very hard for people to know how much salt they are eating when they have a barbecue. 

Front of pack labelling helps shoppers see what is in their food at a glance; CASH found nearly a third of the products (174 out of 603) still contained no front of pack labelling.  Over 100 products had no salt per portion information on pack and 22 products had no salt information on the pack at all.  Tesco had the most consistent labelling using Guideline Daily Amounts (GDAs) across most of their products, however without traffic lights many consumers may find this difficult to interpret.  Asda and M&S products used the clearest labelling, combining GDA and traffic lights [Ref 4]. Surprisingly, CASH found Waitrose labelling the least consistent, and therefore the hardest to analyse, of all the supermarkets.

Portion sizes on the labels were described differently depending on the brand; making it easy to underestimate how much salt you might actually eat at a barbecue.  For example sometimes a portion was 1 chipolata sausage and other times it was 2 jumbo sausages, a portion of crisps ranged from one to two handfuls, and dips ranged from as little as 1 to as much as 4 tablespoons per portion. 

“The fact that some manufacturers can keep the salt content right down in these foods highlights how unnecessary it is for the rest to have such a high salt content” says Professor Graham MacGregor, Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Chairman of CASH.  “It is the very high levels of salt that are added to our food that puts up our blood pressure and leads to thousands of people needlessly dying of strokes, heart attacks and heart failures every year.  We urge these companies to reduce their salt content immediately.”

“Having a barbecue during The World Cup is great fun, but there is no need to be eating dangerous levels of salt at the same time” says CASH Campaign Manager & Nutritionist Katharine Jenner “Many of the products in a tasty barbecue, such as meat, potato salad and crème fraiche for dips naturally contain very little salt.  I think many people would be surprised to learn you could have as much salt in your dip as in your crisps! It is important to think about how much you really eat in a barbecue, and be on the look out for lower salt alternatives when shopping.”

Joe Korner, Director of Communications for The Stroke Association said, “Too much salt can lead to high blood pressure, which is the single biggest risk factor for stroke. The recommended daily maximum is about one teaspoon per day. Although many people recognise that too much salt can be bad for them, they may not realise that before you add any salt to your food, you may have already consumed more than this without even tasting it. Everyone can reduce their risk of stroke by eating a healthy diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables and low in salt and fat, exercising regularly, giving up smoking, drinking responsibly and having regular blood pressure checks.”