Experts find that Greggs Tomato Soup contains FIVE times the amount of sugar stated on the packaging
During the latest episode of Channel 4’s ‘Tricks Of The Restaurant Trade’, the team looked at what lies in some of the lunches sold by high street food chains
COULD your lunch be less ‘healthy’ than you think?
During the latest episode of Channel 4’s ‘Tricks Of The Restaurant Trade’, which aired on Monday, the team looked at what lies in some of the lunches sold by high street food chains – and some of the results are sure to surprise.
Findings included a salad from Pure which contained more calories than a fried Full English, and a plain tomato soup from Greggs, which was found to contain over five times the amount of sugar than stated in its nutritional information.
These days, many workers opt to eat quick and easy eats at their desks, or on-the-go – so convenience food is extremely popular.
However, it seems that convenience comes at a price when it comes to knowing what it actually in our grub.
On the show, nutritionist Amanda Ursell investigated the nutritional value of some supposedly ‘healthy’ high street lunches, including the calorie content of Pure’s ‘Big Mack’ mackerel salad.
It was found that, with its dressing included, the salad contained a whopping 757 calories - more than the average fried breakfast.
Amanda added: “I think it’s surprising that you can notch up 757 calories in something that is, at the end of the day, a salad.
“My advice for this one would be: ditch the dressing.”
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Pure have since stopped selling this particular salad, but for buyers it’s worth noting that in many grab and go salads, the nutritional information for dressings is often not provided.
Simple soups even turned out to be an offender when it came to undisclosed salt and sugar content.
A pot of miso chicken and noodle soup from Pod was stated as containing 4.4g of salt on its packaging – but after analysis it was discovered that the average salt content was 20 per cent higher at 5.4g.
Shockingly, this is 90 per cent of an adult’s daily recommended intake - which is only 6g.
Amanda said: “Having too much salt, for most people, raises the risk of increased blood pressure, which in turn can increase the risk of stroke or even heart attack.
“The restaurant trade really needs to get its act together in this area.”
In response to this finding, a spokesperson for Pod said: “We are not trying to con our customers. We have withdrawn the miso soups from our menu.
“The miso paste was difficult to portion exactly to recipe.”
Greggs’ cream of tomato soup also seems to include inaccurate nutritional info.
The hot lunch staple was advertised as containing 5.7g sugar per 300g portion.
But when researchers studied three portions, which weighed slightly more, the sugar content averaged nearly five times the stated amount - at 25.4g per pot.
Amanda said: “It’s not far off a fizzy drink, is it? You wouldn’t expect that.”
In response to the team’s findings, Greggs said that they would review the methodology used to define nutritional data and would reformulate the recipe if required.
‘Tricks of the Restaurant Trade’ is on Mondays at 8.30pm on Channel 4.