Your favourite cheese ‘contains more salt than a bag of crisps – raising risk of high blood pressure’

MANY popular cheeses are packed full of “unnecessary” salt, campaigners have warned.

Action on Salt found that a 30g portion of standard supermarket cheddar contains more salt than a packet of crisps.

Asda’s 30% less fat mature British cheese had the highest salt studied, containing 2g of salt per 100g or 0.6g of salt per 30g.

Walkers Salt and Vinegar crisps contain 1.6g of salt per 100g, or 0.4g of salt per 25g multipack bag.

Cathedral City mature cheddar had 1.83g per 100g, while Morrisons’ cheese had the lowest average, 1.61g per 100g.

Adults are recommended to limit their salt to 6g per day (around one level teaspoon) to avoid health consequences including high blood pressure, which can lead to stroke and heart attack.

Most people do not weigh cheese before adding it to sandwiches, pasta or otherwise.

Given that salt is found in foods such as sausages, pizza, bread, soups and more, people may be consuming far more than they realise.

Sonia Pombo, of Action on Salt, said: “As a nation, we are all eating far too much salt, much of which is already added by the food industry in everyday family favourites such as cheese.

“The level of salt in some of these products is simply unnecessary.”

The charity’s survey of more than 600 cheeses found plant-based varieties were almost 10 per cent saltier than regular cheddar.

Graham MacGregor is a professor of cardiovascular medicine at Queen Mary University of London and the Action on Salt chairman.

He said: “Reducing salt is the most cost-effective measure to lower blood pressure and reduce the number of people suffering from strokes and heart disease and life-changing disabilities associated with this.

“According to the Department of Health & Social Care, each gram per day reduction in population salt intake saves more than 4,000 premature deaths per year.

“And yet, the government do little to help the public in reducing their salt intake and should force the food industry to use much less salt in their products.”

Maximum salt targets were set to be achieved by the end of 2024.

While many cheeses currently available fell below this level, the charity has called for even stricter and mandatory salt reduction targets beyond this year.

In 2012, the average salt content of cheese was 1.68g per 100g, compared to 1.7g per 100g in 2023.

The lack of any significant reductions since 2012 “makes it clear that the targets are far too lenient”, the campaigners said.