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英国快餐“比海咸”
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| 快餐含盐量普遍过高 |
英国当局提倡健康饮食，试图以此降低全国保健系统的负担，其中一个关注点就是人们的盐的摄取量，可是，最新调查报告显示，英国快餐含盐量普遍超标，一些快餐食品含盐量甚至超过规定标准的四倍！
专家们认为，食盐摄入量过高还会导致高血压、心脏病和中风等疾病。
这 份由“盐分与健康共识行动组织”(Consensus Action on Salt and Health, Cash HC案:應該是CASH)进行的调查，共对包括汉堡王(Burger King)、肯德基(KFC)、麦当劳(McDonald’s)以及必胜客(Pizza Hut)食品在内的346种食品和饮料进行了调查。
调查结果显示，必胜客匹萨薄饼、肯德基炸鸡、汉堡王汉堡的含盐量都严重超标。一般来说，一名成年人日均食盐摄入量最多不应超过6克，而一名6岁儿童日均食盐摄入量最高不应超过3克。
可是，必胜客推出的“四人超级匹萨”(Pizza Plus meal for four)的含盐量高达12.3克，是成人日均食盐最高摄入量的2倍还多。
此外，肯德基“双人炸鸡套餐”(Deluxe Boneless Box)的含盐量也高达10.4克，平均每人5.2克。
必胜客发言人声称，这份调查报告中的一些数据是不准确的。他说：“家长们都愿意带孩子们吃必胜客匹萨薄饼，而且我公司已经降低了各种产品的含盐量。”
适当分量
| 含盐量最高的几种快餐 必胜客4人套餐 (2个匹萨、小吃、奶酪蛋糕)
每份含盐量：12.3克 必胜客4人套餐 (主菜同上、配不同甜点)
每份含盐量：12克 肯德基双人套餐 (8小块炸鸡胸、2包鸡米花、炸薯条、黄豆、沙拉、百事可乐)
每份含盐量：5.2克 肯德基全家桶 (12块炸鸡，炸薯条，黄豆，沙拉、百事可乐)
每份含盐量：4.7克 CASH |
英国盐分与健康共识行动组织(Cash)主席格雷厄姆•麦格雷戈(Graham MacGregor)教授谴责快餐行业在利益的驱使下，故意使用过量食盐让儿童习惯吃高盐食品。
格雷厄姆教授说，“食盐很容易使人上瘾。孩子们一旦习惯了吃高盐食品，就不再对家长们精心烹制的健康食品感兴趣。”
“为了实现经济利益最大化，很多商家使用廉价调味品并大量加入食盐，以至于部分快餐食品吃起来比海水还咸。”
他说，“吃得太咸会导致舌头麻木、从而想要吃得更咸。”
Salt is a killer - we consume vast amounts and the government appears to be failing to force food and drink manufacturers to do anything to cut it down. For the second time Health Minister Melanie Johnson rejected the food industry's voluntary plans for salt reduction calling them often too short on detail and specific actions.
 | Salt levels |
From the plans submitted, she said, 50% of the products such as pizzas, breakfast cereals sandwiches and ready made meals will continue to contain unacceptably high levels of salt. So think again she said, but gave no sign of getting tough.
Kirsty Wark was joined in the studio by Professor Graham MacGregor from the Consensus Action on Salt and Health, Martin Paterson, the deputy Director General of the Food and Drink Foundation, and Melanie Johnson, the Public Health Minister.
KIRSTY WARK:
Melanie Johnson, why won't you face the fact that the food industry will not take you seriously until you make a reduction of salt compulsory?
MELANIE JOHNSON MP
PUBLIC HEALTH MINISTER:
I think they are taking us seriously. Actually, they have been co-operating but we have not achieved enough progress yet. That is what I've gone back to them on. I have not gone back to them twice so far. This is the second time I've gone back to them, I've only gone back to them once before that, which is...
WARK:
That is twice. We had you on in January when you were saying they had not done well enough.
JOHNSON:
They haven't done well enough historically. It is not linked up with the meetings with ministers, discussions about these things and an attempt to get clear plans from them.
WARK:
You say 'attempt to get clear plans from them'. The last time round, you didn't get plans either. I would put to you that perhaps you are enthralled to the food industry, and you are reluctant to take any real, definite action that the voters can be comfortable with.
JOHNSON:
We are getting progress from them. It is not far enough. We have had only one round of discussions about this so far, the round taking place this year. That has got to the first set of salt plans from them, which I have said don't go far enough. We are going to ask them to come back now in September with a further round. I know some of them are already looking at what they can do in addition to what they have proposed. We believe we can make progress this way. It is in everybody's interests. Your report shows clearly what the damage is that salt is doing to people. It is not something we need in our diet. It is something that we can cut back easily. If there is voluntary co-operation across the industry, it is in their interests for consumers to live longer. It is in our interests for healthier patients.
WARK:
But the point is that you are not making...if you are making headway, why make that announcement today? Martin Paterson, if you are doing so well, why are the Government very sceptical about your plans, and have said so very publicly today?
MARTIN PATERSON
DEPUTY DIRECTOR GENERAL, FOOD AND DRINK FOUNDATION:
We have seen a particularly inept example of attempting to manage Government by headlines. We have been submitting detailed plans in some cases, and commitments in other cases that will have to be fulfilled through detailed work to reduce salt right across the range of foods. On the one hand, we have the Food Standards Agency applauding us and then on the other hand we have a bizarre front page of the Times this morning telling us we are not doing enough.
WARK:
You've got the Minister there saying that the Food Standards Agency isn't applauding you. That's just nonsense.
JOHNSON:
The FSA produce the figures which we have used.
PATERSON:
The Food Standards Agency have called for a one gram cut up to 2004. It seems even under admittedly wonky figures from this morning's newspapers, two thirds of that has been achieved. So it's all very strange.
WARK:
Professor MacGregor, is it progress?
PROFESSOR GRAHAM MACGREGOR
CONSENSUS ACTION ON SALT AND HEALTH:
No, I'm afraid that Melanie Johnson and the Government, although I'm reluctant to say it, are right on this. The response from the food industry so far quite frankly, and we have looked carefully at it, has been pathetic. For every 10% reduction we would save 7,000 deaths a year from strokes and heart attacks. It could be done tomorrow. You could make a 15% reduction in all of these foods tomorrow; there would be no taste or safety problems, no technological problems. They could do it tomorrow. They haven't. As a result, 7,000 people died last year unnecessarily.
WARK:
Why don't you do it tomorrow?
PATERSON:
Well, I think that the Professor hasn't actually been running a food company. If we reduce salt in products and they stay on the shelf, that's no use to anybody, that does not help anybody's sales. We've got to...
MACGREGOR:
But a 10% reduction, you can't...There are huge experiments in all sorts of things saying that you cannot detect 10% reductions. This is the rubbish we have had from the Food and Drink Federation again and again.
WARK:
OK. Can I just bring this out...This is a meal deal. You can get these in any supermarket, this just happens to be Safeway. This meal deal here, this one sandwich, one packet of crisps and one bottle, amounts to 7 grams of fat. The Government is heading for six grams. How is that responsible of the food industry to produce sandwiches that have 4.3 grams of fat in them? Of course, at the price of £1.69, they are attractive.
PATERSON:
I'm sure you mean salt. Nevertheless, you've got there a packet of crisps, that is a salty snack. You've got there a sandwich which will have salt...
WARK:
Do you think it is a responsible combination for a retailer to be selling, and to be selling because it is a great deal?
PATERSON:
Absolutely.
WARK:
You do? Why?
PATERSON:
I would not recommend any individual meal was copied day after day. Over the course of a year, you will eat many things. We can manage our salt. But we do want to bring it down, and we are working towards that.
WARK:
Melanie Johnson, the specific question is people don't know how much salt they are eating. It is often difficult to work it out. You have been asked this before. You always dodge it. Why are you so against stamping on the front of food what the salt content is?
JOHNSON:
That is one possible long-term answer to things.
WARK:
Why long term?
JOHNSON:
The better answer is that the foodstuffs contain less salt, because a lot of people don't read the labelling, even when it contains more detail. What they do is buy products. A lot of the things that have a lot of salt in them are things that people eat as main staple foods.
WARK:
But you heard Professor MacGregor saying a 10% cut in salt will be virtually negligible to the palate after about a week. Enforce it now, make it compulsory.
JOHNSON:
The fact is that we want it across the board. The food industry is in a position to deliver it across the board. It is in their interests to have healthy consumers as well. We believe it is in their interests to move on this. We are giving them one further period here in which they can come back to us with further reductions. I would entirely agree it won't make a difference from the point of view of consumers.
WARK:
Let's ask you about that. You are so set on this idea that by September you want to see a different plan, a different level of planning, yet you are not saying publicly, after making all the brouhaha about it, you are not saying publicly what the sanction will be if they don't comply. What will the sanction be?
JOHNSON:
The sort of things that the Food Standards Agency has already done is to come out with some of the levels of salt in some of the products and to name and shame some of the manufacturers and products. We would rather not be going down that line. The main thing is to achieve the gains for people's health. That is the main thing.
WARK:
Professor MacGregor, it seems to the uneducated ear here about levels of salt that actually the Government is markedly reluctant to make hard and fast rules.
MACGREGOR:
Well, I think they're in a difficult position, because they could be called a nanny state and that. It is ridiculous to say it. People are unaware of the salt content of food, so how can they possibly cut it? I agree we need to label foods clearly, that's an important thing which could be done tomorrow...
JOHNSON:
So do I.
MACGREGOR:
We need to cut the salt levels. We need the two things, better information to the public and at the same time cutting it. It should be done. I am torn between saying, 'yes we need to legislate', it would be difficult to do that. We need to really name and shame organisations like the Food and Drink Federation that represent things, the supermarkets. Why don't you do something and get there...people like you are in a position, the media, to get them to do it. Let me give you an example. We had a survey of sandwiches a few weeks ago. It highlighted a sandwich that had six grams of salt in it, it contained smoked salmon and crème fraiche. It now contains 2.2 grams. So that's a three-fold reduction in three weeks.
WARK:
Why can't you make a commitment that no packaged sandwich will have more than 2.5 grams of salt? It is completely unnecessary for it to have more than that. Make a commitment.
PATERSON:
Because that's not the case. It is completely unnecessary. First of all, people...
WARK:
Because the food is not good enough and you have to mask it?
PATERSON:
No, because people need to buy it and enjoy the taste. If you leave it on the shelf it's done nobody any good. Nevertheless, let me just make the point...
WARK:
What you are saying, then, is education is not our role?
PATERSON:
No, not at all. We have been calling for an education programme for the Food Standards Agency for two years. We've said we'll play our part. We have already, in the course of the last week, told the minister we would be happy to discuss how to proceed with labelling. We are making moves right across the board. As to naming and shaming the Food and Drink Federation, I'm here on the television, there is no secret. I'm happy to talk about the moves that our industry is making.
WARK:
I'll ask you a specific question. I went onto the McDonald's website today. Of course it now says we sell this food and that food. It says the ingredients are, and the second one may be salt. It doesn't say how much salt. What is the point of that?
PATERSON:
I cannot speak for an individual McDonald's project. What I do know is that we are making an enormous amount of change. It's not just 10%. In soups and sauces, right across the board, last year 10%, this year 10% with the guarantee of another 10%, if consumers accept it. We have made that commitment. It is being overseen by the Food Standards Agency to make sure it is right. In cereals, we have moved from 1998 by 16% and are going to push to 25% down by 2005. These are big figures...
WARK:
Make it 75%, and they're not that big figures.
PATERSON:
They are big figures. Consumers need to be able to accept the product.
WARK:
OK, very briefly, does this really sound, Melanie Johnson, to you, as if you are getting the kind of commitment you need?
JOHNSON:
Well, I am looking forward to seeing more commitment, and that's what I've said in my letter, and I hope the food industry will go away and reflect on their response. The latest salt figures show that salt is continuing to rise in our diets. It is a serious health issue. We won't notice if it's reduced across the board in a stepped process. We want to see more commitment with more reductions over a swift period of time to get where we want to more rapidly.
PATERSON:
No, you're pushing on an open door...
WARK:
Thank you very much indeed. It's enough to harden your arteries.
This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.
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