London: A new study found that quantity of salt in fast food varies from country to country. Examining fast-food menu information in six countries, researchers found that the same item sometimes had different salt levels in different countries.
Generally, certain foods had less salt in the UK than in the U.S. or Canada—like McDonald’s chicken nuggets and some chain-restaurant pizzas, Reuters reported
One serving of Chicken McNuggets, for example, came with 1.5 grams of salt (or 600 milligrams of sodium) in the U.S. and 1.7 grams of salt (680 mg of sodium) in Canada. That compared with just 0.6 grams of salt (240 mg of sodium) in the UK.
The chicken nuggets served up in Australia, France and New Zealand had salt levels that fell somewhere in between.
Salt was pervasive regardless of location, however. Overall, fast-food burgers served up an average of 1.3 grams of salt (or 520 grams of sodium) across all countries, with only small national differences.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), people should get less than 2,000 mg of sodium over a whole day.
It’s not clear why salt content in some fast-food items varied by country, said Dr. Norman Campbell of the University of Calgary in Canada, who worked on the study.
One factor in the country differences could be UK government efforts, the researchers write in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. The UK has set voluntary salt-reduction “targets” for the packaged food industry.
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