Worrying’ levels of salt found in everyday food

If you were to look at a pack of instant noodles, you would think that it has more salt than a packet of crisps or a Big Mac from McDonald’s. However, research into the salt levels in our foods found otherwise.

A study by the Georgia Institute for Global Health tested 765 noodles from Australia, China, Costa Rica, Fiji, India, Indonesia, New Zealand, Samoa, South Africa and the UK. Their results found that Australia is the second highest in the world for salt levels.

Just one packet of two-minute noodles in Australia has a whooping 80-percent of your recommended daily intake of salt. Supermarket giant Aldi was declared the “worst offender” as their noodle range contained more than half of a day’s salt allowance in one packet.

Labelling is coming under fire as one of the other big offenders Maggi Mi Goreng Fusion Soy & Mild Spice had the least amount of salt of any brand on its label but scored the highest in the lab.

“This shows just how confusing it can be for consumers because there is no clear and consistent labelling on instant noodles,” Clare Farrand, public health nutritionist at The George Institute told the Sydney Morning Herald. She continued “There is a huge amount of salt in a serving of noodles, but what is more worrying is that in reality people tend to eat the entire packet of noodles, rather than just the recommended serving size, eating even more salt than what is advertised.”

Both Maggi and Aldi issued statements defending their products. Maggi claims that the reason the salt is labelled so low on their products is that they only measure table salt that is added into the product and not the salt that comes from other ingredients. Aldi said, “We take market cues on labelling and branding and ensure we carry out due diligence when developing packaging of all of our products and labels.”

Should there be a consistent way that salt is measured in our products? Do you eat these noodles and will this take them off your shoppinglist?