Health campaigners have warned that some of Britain's largest restaurant are serving dishes with unacceptably high levels of salt to children.
A survey of 302 meals on children's menus by the campaign(运动) group Action on Salt found that 41 percent contained more than 1. 8 grams of salt, the maximum(最大量) recommended amount for a child's meal set by Public Health England in 2017. The group's research also found that 34 percent of the meals had more than 2g of salt. The saltiest meal analyzed was the cheeseburger with fries made by Gourmet Burger Kitchen.
The survey also found that levels of salt for the same meal could be different, depending on which restaurant made them. The spaghetti made by the Italian restaurant Prezzo contained 3. 2g of salt compared with 0. 3g in the version made by Beefeater.
In September 2020 PHE set out new maximum salt recommendations for children's meals. It wants the level reduced to 1. 71g by 2024. Action on Salt found that nearly half of the meals it surveyed exceeded this level, including most meals at Gourmet Burger Kitchen and Pizza Hut. But some restaurants, for example Brewers Fayre, Burger King and Ikea, made all their children's dishes with less than 1. 71g of salt.
Graham MacGregor, professor of cardiovascular( 心血管的) medicine at Queen Mary University of
London, said, "Slowly reducing the salt that is added to our food is the most cost-effective measure for lowering blood pressure and reducing the thousands of strokes and heart disease which are caused by eating too much salt. Government officials must now force certain restaurants to stop adding all of this salt and putting our children's future health at risk. "
