Why do they pack soooo much salt in?

TheMrWobbly

This is only one example, I bought a tesco bbq pork noodles meal for tonight, 465 cals and very low saturates, all good I thought. Just added it to today's diary in anticipation and it contains 150% of my MFP sodium intake!!!!

Letting tesco know my thoughts on this but pre-made meals might have to take a back seat for a while.

Any thoughts or is this just one bad example?

TLwineguzzler

I just can't eat ready meals any more since cutting back on salt a few years ago - they're just so horrendously salty!

farway

salt is cheap

I do not add salt, and find lots of processed foods just too salty

I think the "healthy" calorie counted option ranges from the likes of Waitrose or Morrisons may be better, but TBH I have never worried about my sodium intake, but do not use much salt as stated, which may be why I find many processed foods salty

scb515

I am too busy to cook fresh, one of the reasons why I put on weight in the first place - too many meals out and takeaways!

What I have noticed is that the premium lines (so in this case, Tesco Finest) are a lot better in terms of calories, fat and saturated fat than the regular or value lines. The taste may be similar, but the uplift in price actually has a health benefit.

Given I now eat smaller portions, it hasn't been a hardship going up a bracket. A unit costs more, but I eat less of it, so my bills haven't increased. Next time you're out, compare the nutritional info on a packet of Finest filled ravioli and a regular pack of ravioli. Crazy.

ElusivePete

Don't trust the database for sodium values. The majority of entries I see are incorrect, often because people seem to enter the salt value instead, not realising it's different from sodium.

You need to divide the salt value by roughly 2.5 to get sodium. For example, if something contains 500mg of salt, then it really only contains the equivalent of around 200mg sodium.

Another common sodium mistake I see is people entering grams instead of milligrams. E.g. they'll enter 0.15 instead of 150.

TheMrWobbly

I get that there is about 400 mg of sodium in 1 gram of salt which, converted means MPF suggest I can have up to 6 grams of salt which is surely too much?

I take your point though the high sodium foods that I have had when I look at the actual ingredient the have put the salt content down and not the sodium.