Some lunchtime salads and prepacked pasta meals contain more salt than a hamburger and chips and should carry health warnings, a campaign group said today.

One noodle salad was found to have 4.4g of salt in a single portion – 73 per cent of an adult’s recommended daily intake.

A survey by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) found that one in five of 156 meals analysed contained more than a third of the 6g recommended maximum daily salt intake for adults.

There are variations between labels. For example, Asda’s three-cheese layered salad contained 2.6g of salt, whereas Tesco’s equivalent product contained 0.8g.

One problem is the use in salads of salty ingredients such as bacon, ham and cheese. Another is the salad dressing, which can often add an extra gram of salt to a meal. In addition, Cash said that some labels added salt when it was not necessary.

The McDonald’s low-fat Caesar dressing contains 2.7g of salt per 100g; Sainsbury’s classic Caesar dressing has 1g of salt per 100g.

McDonald’s crispy chicken Caesar salad with low-fat dressing had 3.5g salt per portion – even saltier than a Big Mac and small fries, which contained 2.5g of salt.

Cash would prefer food outlets and shops to provide extra sachets or pots for dressing so that consumers have some control over what they eat.

Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of Cash, said that many salads and pasta dishes on sale were healthy options but that others should carry a health warning over their salt content.

He singled out the EAT chain’s smoked mackerel superfood salad, which is marketed as a healthy option but contains 3.5g of salt, more than half an adult’s recommended daily intake. He suggested that someone wishing to eat oily fish would do better to choose Sainsbury’s poached Scottish salmon and dill pasta salad, with only 0.4g per portion.

Cash is particularly angry that the Pret a Manger chain of food outlets continues to exclude nutritional information, including details of salt content, from packs of its meals and sandwiches.

The organisation urged the company to make the change and suggested it would be easy to implement as the information was already available on the website.

The survey is a follow-up to one conducted three years ago, and reveals that the Cooperative and Boots have lowered the salt content of their lunch products in the intervening period.

Many dishes in the survey contained only 0.5g or trace amounts of salt. Data were taken from product labels, company websites or customer services. Side salads and garden salads were not included because they were not considered to constitute a full meal.

Professor MacGregor said: “Saving 2g to 3g of salt a day may not sound a lot, but research shows that people who reduce their salt intake by this sort of amount can reduce their risk of having a heart attack or stroke by a quarter.

“Cutting our salt intake is vital, as for each 1g of salt we can cut out of our national average intake, we will save over 6,500 lives each year.”

Ten worst offenders

4.4g* 73%**
EAT Thai noodle

3.7g 62%
Tesco tuna and sweetcorn pasta snack

3.5g 58%
EAT smoked mackerel superfood
McDonald’s crispy chicken Caesar salad with low-fat Caesar dressing

3.3g 55%
McDonald’s grilled chicken Caesar salad with low-fat Caesar dressing

3g 50%
EAT spicy chicken noodles
Morrisons chicken and bacon pasta Morrisons tuna pasta
Somerfield cheese and tomato pasta snack
Somerfield chicken and bacon pasta snack

Source: Consensus Action on Salt and Health

*Salt content per portion **Recommended daily adult intake

Explore Food & Drink

• Gordon Ramsay

• Heston Blumenthal

• Recipes

• Wine

• Real Food

• Anjum Anand

• Eating Out

• Video Recipes

Times Recommends

• How to season a wok
• Chicago Rib Shack hits back at its critics
• Gordon Ramsay: Indian barbecue