Delia's recipes contain too much salt

7th April 2008, 12:07pm

Several of Delia Smith's latest recipes are said to contain very high salt levels, Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) has found.

In Delia's new 'How to Cheat at Cooking' television series and recipe book, she encourages people to mix together ready-made foods rather than cook from scratch with fresh ingredients if they are short of time.

Unfortunately, many of these read-made products are already high in salt and many of the ingredients that she adds contain large amounts of salt. She also advises adding extra salt in many of her recipes.

For instance, the ingredients for "very nutritious and very cheap" -  Thick Pea and Bacon Soup - add up to around 12g of salt. This recipe serves two, so each person would be eating almost their 6g a day salt limit in one meal. Even divided between four people as a starter, this recipe provides half the daily salt limit.

Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of CASH and professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Medical School at St George's Hospital in London, explained: "The UK is currently leading the world in salt reduction. The majority of our food industry is making huge efforts to reduce the amount of salt they add to food and the public is becoming much more aware that eating too much salt has severe health implications.

"Unfortunately, this hard work is undermined when chefs and cookery writers appear on television using high salt ingredients and adding large amounts of unnecessary salt to their recipes."

MacGregor goes on to advice people that if they want to cook one of Delia's recipes, that they should try the ones that do not feature high salt ingredients, and urges people that there is no need to add any extra salt during cooking.

Carrie Bolt, CASH Nutritionist, also explained that nutritionists would always advise people to cook meals from scratch, and that by avoiding ready-made version meals, this would cut the salt content of food dramatically. 

Related Articles:

• 12 Nov 2009 - Jamie Oliver's pasta sauces contain too much salt, says CASH
• 23 Jul 2009 - New survey reveals salt content varies across the world

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