5th June 2013 - Parents packing their children off to school with biscuits in their lunchboxes may be putting their health at risk because of high levels of hidden salt, a survey has found.
It found that children are eating just as many biscuits - if not more - than adults, even though they feature in the top 10 contributors of salt intake in our diet.
The research was carried out by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH), which regularly highlights salt levels in popular types of food we like to eat.
High blood pressure
Experts are warning parents that they might be aware that high levels of sugar found in biscuits increase the risk of their children having tooth decay, becoming obese and developing diabetes; however, they might not realise that the hidden salt in biscuits puts them at risk of getting high blood pressure later in life.
"When they do have a high salt diet, it will most likely affect their palettes, and they're more likely to be wanting to have higher salt products as they get older," says Sonia Pombo, a nutritionist from CASH. She tells BootsWebMD: "And with that comes the increased blood pressure that they will then develop through having too high a salt diet, which will then increase their risk of developing heart disease and suffering from heart attacks and strokes which is one of the biggest killers here in the UK."
Researchers identified scores of biscuit brands on sale in six leading supermarkets and calculated how much salt they contained. The saltiest biscuits they found were Asda's Fun Size Mini Milk Chocolate Digestives, which contained 1.6g of salt in each 100g of biscuit. That translated as 0.4g for each recommended portion size of 25g.
The recommended salt intake for a child aged between four and six is 3g.
The salty list
The next five saltiest biscuits were:
Sainsbury’s Giant White Chocolate and Raspberry Cookies: 0.39g per 60g biscuit
Asda Extra Special All Butter Belgian White Chocolate Cookies: 0.30g per 25g biscuit
McVitie’s Mini Gingerbread Men: 0.30g per 25g pack
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Ginger and oatflake cookies: 0.26g per 25g biscuit
Cadburys Milk Chocolate Digestives: 0.24g per 16g biscuit
According to CASH, children can get as much, or more, salt in one Cadbury's digestive biscuit as in a chicken nugget, a fish finger or salted popcorn.
What is a portion?
The researchers say one of the problems is that consumers are easily confused about salt content because different manufacturers use different quantities to measure the amount of salt in their products. For instance, 82% of the 479 biscuits surveyed had salt quantity calculated as a portion size of a single biscuit.
"Once you've opened the packet you're more likely to have at least two or three," says Sonia Pombo. She adds that manufacturers should "have more realistic portion suggestions as well, so that people can make it easier for themselves to calculate how much salt that they are having".
Also, some manufacturers disguised how much salt was in their biscuits by referring to it as 'sodium' on the labels.
Victoria Taylor, senior dietitian at the British Heart Foundation, says in a statement: "When even sweet treats are harbouring a salty secret, it’s clear families face a real battle to cut down on their salt intake. It’s made even more difficult by the fact we have grown accustomed to the taste of salt and so it’s practically impossible to know by sight or taste how salty something actually is.
"Food labels, ideally using traffic light colours, will help make that clearer to shoppers and then it’s up to us all to keep a lid on the amount of sugar and salt we’re eating - something our waistlines and hearts will thank us for."
The researchers say it is possible to enjoy biscuits while eating less salt. They recommend a few alternatives, including:
Tesco Bourbon Cream Biscuits, trace per 14g biscuit (0.3g salt/100g product)
Fox’s Fruit and Nut Chunkie, 0.08g per 26g biscuit (0.3g salt/100g product)
Waitrose Essential Nice Biscuits, trace per 8g biscuit (0.3g salt/100g product)
Jammie Dodgers, trace per 19g biscuit (0.4g salt/100g product)
Maryland Double Choc Cookies, trace per 11g biscuit (0.4g salt/100g product)
The CASH survey looked at biscuits on sale in Asda, The Co-operative, Morrisons, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose.
The official account of Hotmail got its last tweet out on Tuesday bidding farewell to its followers on the social networking site.
Microsoft completed the move from Hotmail to the new Outlook.com, which now boasts more than 400 million accounts.
The new Outlook email client has several different features from Hotmail, such as two-factor authentication, an updated calendar and app and integration with cloud service Skydrive and Skype.
The tweet also informed people about the new twitter handle to follow - @Outlook.
Most Hotmail users will not notice much difference. They can continue to use those accounts as long as they choose and can claim an Outlook email address whenever they like.
Writing in the company blog , Dick Craddock said that Hotmail had more than 300 million active accounts.
Upgrading had meant communicating with hundreds of millions of people, upgrading all their mailboxes and making sure that every person's mail, calendar, contacts, folders, and personal preferences were preserved in the upgrade. All this was done live and in only six weeks.
Hotmail was one of the first web-based email services. Founded by Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith it was launched on July 4 1996 as "HoTMaiL". Microsoft bought the web email service in 1997 for an estimated $400 million, and it was rebranded as "MSN Hotmail".
Outlook.com was launched in February 2013. It's based around Microsoft's Metro design language, and closely mimics the interface of Microsoft Outlook.