- MS and Waitrose offering £20 three-course ready meals plus wine or prosecco
- Consensus Action on Salt and Health found they’re high in salt, fat and calories
- Customers could consume daily calorie intake in just one meal, study found
Sophie Borland for the Daily Mail
316
View
comments
Many loving couples will choose to celebrate St Valentine’s Day with a romantic meal at home tonight.
Restaurants will be crowded or too expensive and the cold drizzle forecast across most of Britain offers little encouragement to venture out on a weekday evening.
But there’s a price to pay if you indulge in a Valentine’s Day ‘dine in’ meal deal from one of the high street chains.
Analysis by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) has found that they are very high in salt, calories, fat and sugar
Health campaigners have revealed that some contain as much salt as six Big Mac burgers or eight portions of fries. Some burst through the daily sugar allowance in just one meal.
High street giants including MS and Waitrose are offering couples three-course ready meals plus wine or prosecco for just £20. But analysis by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) has found that they are very high in salt, calories, fat and sugar.
For example, MS offers as a three-course meal an Italian Antipasto Delicatessen Selection, Gastropub Gammon Shanks plus Truffled Cauliflower Cheese, then Dutch Apple Tarts.
-
And now the Oxfam backlash: Major firms review donations as…
Who rose to the occasion? Moonpig tops guide to the best…
It all adds up 7.16g of salt per person — more than the 6g daily recommended limit and on a par with six Big Macs at 1.2g each. It contains 1,129 calories per person – more than half the daily 2,000 calories recommended for women. With 23.9g of saturated fat per person it is also well over the female recommendation of 20g per day.
Victoria Taylor, senior dietician at the British Heart Foundation, warned: ‘We know that too much salt in our diets on a regular basis can lead to high blood pressure, which can increase your risk of a heart attack and stroke. It shouldn’t be your meal deal that’s raising your blood pressure on Valentine’s Day.’
Professor Graham MacGregor, chairman of CASH, said: ‘Salt is the forgotten killer, leading to tens of thousands of unnecessary strokes, heart failure and heart attacks every year.’
However, one three-course meal deal from Waitrose was found to contain more salt than eight servings of McDonald’s medium fries at 0.62g each.
Marks and Spencers’ Duck A L’Orange meal for two had 54 grams of fat in the full meal – which works out at 27g per person
Scottish Cooked Mussels in Bisque Sauce followed by Easy to Cook Coq au Vin, Cauliflower Cheese and Salted Caramel and Chocolate Tart has 5.49g of salt, 998 calories, eight teaspoons of sugar (adults are meant to eat no more than six per day) and 23.5g of saturated fat.
CASH nutritionist Sarah Alderton said: ‘Valentine’s is a special occasion and therefore it is no surprise that the meals offered in these ‘dine-in’ deals are of a more indulgent nature.
‘However, our survey has shown that you could easily reach your daily calorie intake and consume way over the maximum recommended daily amount of salt, saturates and sugar in just one meal, so choose wisely. Healthier combinations are available. It pays to read the label and compare the options.’
The average UK adult currently eats 8g of salt a day against the 6g limit recommended by health experts. Prof MacGregor, an expert in cardiovascular medicine at Queen Mary University of London, says: ‘The UK was leading the world in reducing salt intake – however, the current government has done little so far to continue to reduce salt.’
MS said: ‘Valentine’s Day is all about enjoying a treat with your loved one. Our Dine In deal is delicious, hugely popular with our customers. We clearly label the nutrition content of all our food on the front of pack.’
Waitrose said: ‘Our meal deal includes options like tuna steaks, roasting vegetables, asparagus tips, babyleaf salad and a berry and pomegranate fruit pack, so customers have a wide range of choice on Valentine’s Day.’
Share or comment on this article
- Could Gaia have been saved? Inquest hears 19-year-old…
- My wife is being tortured: Husband of British mother…
- Drunken Oxford Tory students ‘groped and harassed women’…
- Mother ‘who only wanted baby so she could get a house’…
- Furious fiancée who sliced open her partner’s scrotum…
- ‘I was in tears doing the interviews… I had to hug my…
- Do YOU live near Britain’s best kebab shop? Finalists in…
- Terrifying dashcam footage shows moment £160k Bentley…
- Council threaten court action against parents of Matilda…
- Mother-of-two, 43, died from sepsis on family holiday to…
- Minnie Driver QUITS as Oxfam celebrity ambassador and…
- Jeremy Clarkson gets ‘team of lawyers’ to ride with him…
- ‘I will never ever forget what happened that night’:…
- Intolerable, undemocratic, a disastrous betrayal: Defiant…
- ‘They were like twins and we will find support in knowing…
- Macron brings back national service two decades after it…
- ‘He should have the courage to come to court’: Judge…
- Oxfam bosses who conned the public and betrayed the…
Comments 316
Share what you think
-
Newest -
Oldest -
Best rated -
Worst rated
The comments below have not been moderated.
The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline.
Close
Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline?
Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual.
Close
Do you want to automatically post your MailOnline comments to your Facebook Timeline?
Your comment will be posted to MailOnline as usual
We will automatically post your comment and a link to the news story to your Facebook timeline at the same time it is posted on MailOnline. To do this we will link your MailOnline account with your Facebook account. We’ll ask you to confirm this for your first post to Facebook.
You can choose on each post whether you would like it to be posted to Facebook. Your details from Facebook will be used to provide you with tailored content, marketing and ads in line with our Privacy Policy.