241 Pizza

“I wonder,” Jennifer Mindell, of the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at University College London, said. “which one came first?”

M&S told The Times that the consortium “obviously took comments from us and other retailers”. The agency amended its target on ham and curedmeats to allow greater flexibility in salt levels after consulting the independent Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food.

Kraft Foods said that salad dressings were eaten in small portions and “their contribution to salt intake is therefore modest”. Patak’s wanted poppadums exempted because only 16 per cent of households ate them. It suggested that Yorkshire puddings should bear the strain, an argument the agency resisted.

Tesco said that it had reduced salt in 700 products; customers were choosing lower-salt foods after nutritional signposts were introduced.Waitrose said it was a responsible retailer which aimed to meet the targets by 2007, three years ahead of the deadline.

Yesterday the agency denied bending to industry pressure.

“The targets are both challenging for industry and achievable,” a spokeswoman said. “However, targets must be technically feasible.”

dkennedy@thetimes.co.uk

Full text of lobbying letters from Marks & Spencer, Tesco, Waitrose, Nestlé, UB

Taste that is difficult to give up

SALT aided civilisation. The discovery that food could be sterilised by soaking in brine allowed settled communities to survive war and epidemics.

However, Graham MacGregor, chairman of Consensus Action on Salt and Health, says that these days few foods rely on salt to preserve them (smoked salmon being one) as other preservatives are available.

Health campaigners blame salt for high blood pressure and claim that 35,000 deaths from strokes and heart attacks could be avoided if salt intake fell from 10g to 6g a day. Salt producers point to smoking, drinking, obesity, lack of exercise and too few fruit and vegetables being eaten as the main causes of heart problems.

Health groups and the food industry agree that reductions must be gradual because consumers have become accustomed to salt in foods. Retailers give warning that if too much salt is removed, food poisoning would increase and consumers might switch to foreign, saltier products or add large amounts to food at the table.

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