The celebrity chef Jamie Oliver makes some of his branded pasta sauces with a higher ratio of salt than is found in seawater.

Health campaigners found that one portion of Jamie’s spicy olive and garlic pasta sauce contained 5.3 grams of salt — almost the 6 grams maximum daily amount recommended for consumption by the Food Standards Agency, and the same salt as in 10 packs of ready salted crisps.

Seawater consists of 2.5 grams of salt per 100g, whereas Oliver’s sauce contained 3 grams of salt per 100g.

The chef has become a prominent campaigner for healthy food. Yet a roasted garlic pasta sauce, by WeightWatchers, contained 0.1g salt per 100g.

A survey of ready-made pasta and stir-in sauces by the Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) found that the highest salt levels were in tomato-based pasta sauces. Sauces with bacon and olives also tended to be saltiest, while those with chilli and basil were lower in salt.

After Oliver’s brand the next saltiest sauce was Sainsbury’s own-brand puttanesca, with 2g per 100g, followed by Sainsbury’s Siciliana with 1.8g per 100g.

High salt levels were found in other leading branded sauces by Dolmio, Ragu and Lloyd Grossman. Each sauce contained on average 1.17g of salt per 100g.

The average amount in supermarket own-brand versions is around 25 per cent lower in salt, at 0.86g per 100g. The high street chains have reached targets from the food watchdog to lower salt levels to 1.1g per 100g by 2010.

A total of 190 sauces were included in the research and samples were taken from Tesco, Asda, Morrisons, Waitrose, the Co-op and Somerfield.

Graham MacGregor, a professor of cardiovascular medicine and chairman of CASH, praised Oliver for encouraging people to eat more fresh fruit and vegetables but said that the levels of salt should be lowered.

“Salt puts up our blood pressure, which is the major risk factor for strokes, heart failure and heart disease, the leading causes of death and disability in the UK,” he said. “It is shocking to see so many products still so poorly labelled and high in salt.”

Oliver’s publicist, Peter Berry, said that the chef had been working most of the year on new recipes for his sauces to lower the salt content. His new spicy olive, garlic and tomato sauce will be in supermarkets from next month with 0.8g per 100g salt, compared with the current 3g per 100g. All the new pasta sauces will meet the Food Standards Agency guidelines.

Mr Berry said: “If CASH had asked us about this, we could have told them. But they didn’t.” He also made clear that the chef’s sauces were intended for servings shared between four to six people, and so the salt content was not the same as one person eating half a jar.

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