Junk food in junk food is junk shock!
No IT angle, no Paris Hilton not even alcohol gets a mention! Standards really are slipping. :-D
UK fast food peppered with salt
A probe into the culinary offerings of the UK's favourite fast food restaurants has found "shockingly high levels of salt in some family, individual, and children's meal options", which in many cases could result in kids receiving well over their maximum daily recommended limit in just one sitting. That's according to Consensus …
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Friday 19th October 2007 10:23 GMT Chris Collins
Daily dose
So, people are taking their kids to PizzaHut every day of the week, now? And that would be bad for you? Well bugger me backwards, who'd of thought it.
You aren't going to suddenly die of salt poisoning from a couple of grams over the limit once a month. They load it with salt so that the synthi-cheese and ruskburgers taste of something. If your amorphous crotchfruit blobs are eating at McDonkeys more than once a month then it's not just salt that's the issue. Diabetes and coronary heart disease should be higher up your lists of concern.
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Friday 19th October 2007 10:47 GMT Anonymous Coward
Salt?
Last time I saw an official *medical* comment on this, it said that whilst excessive salt increases blood pressure in adults with high blood pressure already, there was no indication that it would create problems in people who were otherwise healthy. Assuming you don't eat the stuff by the spoonful, of course.
What ever happened to just eating what you like, in moderation? Kept my Gran going to 100+
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Friday 19th October 2007 11:39 GMT Anonymous Coward
Nice math!
"Were a six-year-old to participate in this orgy of sodium, he or she could be absorbing "over four times their daily limit (3g)", CASH adds."
For that to happen the six-year-old would have to eat as much as an adult, in which case sodium wouldn't be their main problem, would it now (especially if the child also had a couple of beers with the meal like a good adult)?
48 divided by 4 doesn't equal 12, it's simple math...
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Friday 19th October 2007 11:39 GMT alistair millington
Ahh the rocket science
The easiest and direct route for profit in these places is in soft drinks. less than 1p per litre of syrup and they sell it for £1.35, 1.85, 2.50 Same with cinemas (and salty pop corn) and pubs.
So you are there for dinner and eating salty food which makes you more thirsty.
...the French fries are laced in the stuff at McDonkey
Remember at pizza hut when the chicken pizza were vegetarian safe because it was all soya.
And why milk shakes are so thick?
Anyone shocked at a food standards test has released alarming results.
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Friday 19th October 2007 11:48 GMT Tobin
@andy gibson
You might be a man; but are you also a student? You're meals 'as they come' contain huge amounts of salt. Salt tastes good and acts as a preservative hence the high quantities in not just junk food but also almost all prepared food. If you cook your own fresh food you only salt to flavour.
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Friday 19th October 2007 13:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
As someone else pointed out...
Why not eat what tastes good, in moderation? I've always felt that hunger has an intelligence of its own, if you just listen to what it's telling you. If you're craving something salty, it's likely that your body has a need for the salt. If something tastes overly salty to you, it's time to lay off it. My Grandfather lived to 89 following this logic, while the rest of his siblings died much younger. He was an active man, to which I'd also attribute his longevity. (he ate bacon almost every day, and it wasn't a heart or blood pressure related ailment that did him in)
</possible rationalization>
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Friday 19th October 2007 13:28 GMT Nigel Rook
Blasted salt nazis!
It's because of them that now, whenever i go to a Maccy Ds's, I have to ask the pipsquesk behind the counter for half a dozen sachets of salt spread unevenly over my fries in an attempt to make them resemble the salty golden wonder-sticks i remember from my youth.
Oh uncle Thaddius, what jolly times we had...
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Friday 19th October 2007 13:28 GMT Anonymous Coward
salt
Salt plays a crucial role in cooking a lot of starch based foods and is essential for seasoning. You can miss it out and have bland tasting/poorly textured foods (your roast potatoes, for example, will not crisp up properly) and if you are doing a lot of excercise and living in a hot climate you will die from lack of salt. Or you can use it and you will, eventually die.
The choice is yours.
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Friday 19th October 2007 13:28 GMT Starace
Shock!
A pressure group produces research that backs up their point!
Bear in mind the daily recommended maximums are just that - *daily* maximums, i.e. what you can consume every day.
So occasional excursions over the maximum are unlikely to be a problem, as on average you won't have that level of intake. Unless you eat burgers etc. every day, in which case the fat will probably get you before the salt anyway.
And the recommended figures are probably on the conservative side, so the real intake limits are probably higher. And in any case will vary from person to person.
I just wish all these campaign groups would go away. They never get things right, and always push their ideas too far. And none of them seems to like the idea of personal choice.
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Friday 19th October 2007 13:28 GMT David
Ill eat what I want.
When I walk into a fast food restaurant the last thing on my mind is how much salt is in the food. The whole point is that it tastes great at the time and it is full of tasty crap.
If I want a deluxe bonless box ill bloody well have one, and add additional salt to taste because they don't add enough in my opnion.
So there.
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Friday 19th October 2007 14:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
Joe Public needs Public Health, guys.
To summarise what's been written above: we as readers, wish to deride those who want to take away our kidses' Zinger Burgers and Cheese Crusts, because:
a) A little of what you like, does you good. (Yes, but public health wouldn't exist as a concept, if people just did what was good for them).
b) The complainers are out for personal gain. (Too right, they should all wear papal gowns, and whip themselves with chains)
c) People are well-educated enough to judge for themselves. (Excuse me whilst I choke...)
d) You can't flavour food without salt. (Maybe, but as Nick Ryan points out, that doesn't justify splurging it all over everything).
This is to say nothing of addiction to heavily-salted, heavily starched crap - and the conditioning of tastebuds along these lines; how many kids do you know, for whom chips and nuggets are their favourite food?
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Friday 19th October 2007 14:35 GMT Anonymous Coward
Salt content and Coronory Heart disease
Well its not exactly an open and shut case is it ?
"over 20,000 scientific studies have been published on the relationship between salt and hypertension, with conflicting and contradictory results"
So the stuff that we have preserved our food with for 1000's of years is bad for you ? Im not so sure, processed foods and trans fatty acids would be more likely IMHO.
A balanced diet with lots of fruit and veg, a bit of meat and some occasional treats (for the soul) ... its not exactly rocket science is it.
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Friday 19th October 2007 18:28 GMT Daniel
Salt through the ages (@A.C.)
"So the stuff that we have preserved our food with for 1000's of years is bad for you ? Im not so sure, processed foods and trans fatty acids would be more likely IMHO."
While I would tend to agree with you, it's important to realize that until fairly recently, salt was an expensive commodity. Thus, while it was used fairly heavily to preserve certain items (such as salt cured meats, etc.), it wasn't used nearly as heavily as a daily seasoning.
-daniel
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Saturday 20th October 2007 02:35 GMT the Jim bloke
CASH
sounds like another acronym in search of an organisation.
probably sounds more "sexy" to the marketroids than something like "FFOARKU" (fast food outlets are killing us), though that sounds better to me..
Too much honesty in the name would result in a visitation by the legions of legal stormtroopers owned by the franchises.
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Saturday 20th October 2007 03:55 GMT Alan Donaly
Had to check the date
on this story. It's been known and said for years kids don't matter they aren't going to die from the salt it's people over forty that are going to keel kids can live with high blood pressure for a long time without damage me I could die tomorrow if your one of those poor souls who waited till your forties to have kids don't clean their plates you won't get to see them reach their tenth birthday and it's not them that is going anywhere.
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