Warning that shop-bought sandwiches are high in salt.

Sandwich seven times saltier than crisps - Telegraph

Well it's been in 'all' the newspapers today and on Radio 4 and Radio 5 and on various TV newscasts. - You've got to hand it to CASH - Consensus Action on Salt and Health - they are good at drumming up publicity when they want it... - If only they would tell the full truth about salt and health, instead of the very restricted version they choose to put across. - I'll pick this up following this extract from the article:

"Pre-packed sandwiches can contain as much salt as several bags of crisps, according to research into Britain’s favourite lunchtime food.

A survey of 140 ready-made sandwiches found that some had more than half the recommended daily allowance of salt.

A total of 40 per cent 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 survey was Asda’s Extra Special Yorkshire Ham and Hawkes Wensleydale, which was found to contain 4g, or 65 per cent 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, which carried out the survey for the BBC, 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."

Although it is good that CASH draws attention - both the consumers' attention and the retailers' attention - to these high salt/sodium levels, and although Prof MacGregor of CASH always correctly gives the information that lowering salt intake reduces risk of heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke, he does not give the most important information of all - that fluid retention is the cause of salt sensitivity, which in turn is the cause of weight gain/obesity and that lowering salt intake is the best and safest way to lose weight.

What a pity CASH's Professor MacGregor does not give the vital message that reducing the amount of salt eaten by obese/overweight people would be the safest, swiftest and most reliable way to reduce their excess weight! - What a pity he does not mention that high salt intake is the chief cause of child obesity! - What a terrible pity he does not mention that steroid victims - made morbidly obese because of taking certain prescribed steroids or HRT or tricyclic antidepressants or certain other drugs - need to reduce their salt/sodium intake to as low as they possibly can - permanently - in order to lose some of the vast volume of excess fluid they are carrying! - And what a pity he does not warn them that reducing calories is completely inappropriate and ineffective as a means of steroid victims losing weight and that eating less food will exacerbate their health problems, rather than helping them!

What a pity he does not press the food companies to produce some lines of foods specially for steroid victims and other obese victims of negligently prescribed/monitored drugs and people morbidly obese from other causes! - These would be foods containing NO ADDED SODIUM AT ALL. - And for everyone who thinks it's easy to avoid salt by cooking from fresh, I agree. - But it isn't easy cooking from fresh when you are morbidly obese and exhausted at having to carry gallons of excess fluid round with you all the time. - Nothing much is easy for morbidly obese people actually...)o:

And what a pity he doesn't seek to get it across to doctors that when they give their patients prescriptions for these potentially dangerous drugs they should give them a serious warning that eating salt while taking the drugs is likely to result in their becoming salt-sensitive and obese and likely to develop diabetes and dementia and a host of other degenerative diseases!

And what a pity he doesn't press for on-pack labelling of all these drugs to warn people not to eat salt or food containing salt while on the medication!

Lose weight! by eating less salt! Go on! - Try it!

See my website http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/

and see http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/steroids.html

and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/ami.html

and http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/vulnerable_groups.html
(The site does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Remember: 'slimming' is harmful and unnecessary; all that is normally necessary to lose excess weight is to eat less salt, i.e. to reduce one's sodium intake, and to eat plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables - because their high potassium content helps to remove sodium from the body.

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

See Sodium in foods

I can be contacted via my website if you need my further help. My help is free...(o: