As a study reveals wholemeal bread can contain more salt than sliced white loaves, Antony Worrall Thompson tells Channel 4 News it would be “disastrous” if people switched from brown bread to white.

Consensus Action on Salt and Health (Cash) surveyed the salt content of almost 300 loaves of bread from a variety of stores and bakeries.

It found 28 per cent contained as much, or more, salt per slice as a packet of crisps.

A high-salt diet is linked to increased blood pressure. The recommended daily limit for adults is 6g while toddlers should have no more than 2g.

Cash has called for clearer labelling on bread from in-store supermarket and high street bakeries, which often have no nutritional labelling.

It also found that as well as being unlabelled, some high street chain bread contains more than three times as much salt per 100g than bread baked in supermarkets.

Cash chairman Professor Graham MacGregor said: “With bread being the biggest contributor of salt to our diets, it is frankly outrageous that bread still contains so much salt.”

Switch to white bread ‘disastrous’

Cash found the highest standard packaged bread was Cranks Seeded Farmhouse at 2.03g/100g, which contained nearly four times more salt than the lowest – a Marks & Spencer’s Simply More Eat Well Healthiest White Bread (0.58g/100g).

It said speciality breads, such as rye bread, were often perceived as healthier but could be higher in salt than white loaves.

But Chef Antony Worrall Thompson told Channel 4 News it would be “disastrous” if people switched from eating wholemeal bread to white in a bid to reduce salt intake.

He said the health benefits of wholemeal bread are well known: “You get much more fibre in wholemeal bread and then there are seeds and nuts which have lower GI (Glycaemic Index) and are good for your system.”

Channel 4 News compared the sugar, fibre and salt content of three random loaves of bread. Although the white loaf had lower salt content it contained less fibre and more sugar than the brown loaves.

Antony Worrall Thompson said that we should be trying to encourage people to eat brown bread, educate children at a young age about diet and exercise and avoid “health and safety going mad trying to tell us how to run our lives”.

More salt, better taste?

British Retail Consortium food director Andrew Opie said: “Our members have made fantastic progress reducing the levels of salt in food in recent years.

“It’s good to see that many of the loaves of bread with the lowest levels of salt are supermarket own-brands. These are the breads which sell at the greatest volume and that people are likely to eat every day, so reducing the salt in them makes a significant difference to the health of the nation.

“Reducing salt levels in speciality breads is much harder. Retailers and manufacturers have just announced they are choosing to fund independent scientific research to try and find ways of meeting new salt-reduction targets for a range of products, while still making foods which consumers want to buy.

“There’s a danger if salt is reduced further that products will no longer taste the way customers want them to.”