Sandwiches 'saltier than crisps'

A survey of 140 ready-made sandwiches for the BBC found that some had as much in them as several bags of crisps.

A total of 40% of sandwiches tested by the health lobby group Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) had 2g or more of salt, or a third of an adult's recommended daily allowance.

The saltiest sandwich in the Cash survey was Asda's Extra Special Yorkshire Ham and Hawkes Wensleydale which was found to contain 4g, or 65% of the recommended daily salt intake.

Pret a Manger's All Day Breakfast, with 3.54g, was next on the list followed by Tesco's Finest All Day Breakfast, Morrisons' Chicken and Bacon, Sainsbury's Taste the Difference Brunch and Waitrose's Sausage, Egg and Bacon, all with 3.5g of salt.

Cash noted that a standard bag of Walkers Ready Salted Crisps contains 0.5g of salt, so the saltiest sandwiches contain the equivalent of seven bags of crisps. The sandwiches with the least salt were Co-op's Healthy Living Tuna and Cucumber and Tesco's Healthy Living Chicken Salad.

Dr Isabel Lee, research liaison officer for The Stroke Association, said: "Excess salt in a person's diet can lead to high blood pressure, the single biggest factor for stroke. Around 40% of strokes could be prevented through the control of high blood pressure - that's around 50,000 a year.

"Some of the sandwiches described in this report can be perceived as a healthy eating option by consumers, yet the varying salt contents in the same variety of sandwich from different manufacturers could be misleading.

"Consumers must be allowed to make an informed choice on what they eat.

"A mandatory and consistent food labelling system by manufacturers is the only way to provide consumers with this information, allowing them to make like-for-like comparisons."