Some vegan meals contain more salt than seven McDonald’s hamburgers, study finds
Vegan meals served in restaurants and takeaways are often packed with dangerously high levels of salt, new research suggests.
Current health guidelines from the NHS state that adults should eat no more than 6g of salt a day, or around one teaspoon.
However, a recent investigation has found that a number of plant-based meals, which are often perceived as a healthier choice on restaurant menus, contain all or more of the daily recommended limit.
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The study, conducted by researchers at Action on Salt, looked at the salt content of more than 290 plant-based products across 45 UK high street restaurants, fast food and coffee chains.
The findings showed that 45 per cent of these meals contained more than half an adult’s daily recommended intake of salt, while one in five provided all or more of the daily limit of salt.
This included Papa John’s Vegan American Hot Medium Pizza which contained a staggering 9.28g, more than in seven McDonald’s hamburgers, while seafood chain Loch Fyne’s spiced roasted cauliflower and squash goan curry, had 8.65g, meaning it contains more salt than 19 anchovies.
Elsewhere, Wasabi’s Pumpkin Katsu Curry Yakisoba contained 10.3g of salt, Bella Italia’s vegan cheese pizza had 8.1g salt and Chiquito’s Vegarrito contained 7.8g of salt.
Sonia Pombo, Action on Salt’s campaign manager said the findings showed that some restaurants are “continuing to drown us in salt” under the guise of “a vegan health halo”.
“A plant-based or vegan label does not automatically qualify a product as healthy,” she said.
“It is time for restaurants and cafes to step up and start making food that is healthy for us and better for the planet.”
1/13
Veganuary becomes bigger every year, but it needn’t be just for Janaury as these cookbooks make it easy and accessible. Words by Stacey Smith
iStock/The Independent
2/13 ‘Rachel Ama’s Vegan Eats: Tasty plant-based recipes for every day’ by Rachel Ama. Published by Ebury Press: £12.87, Amazon
Since launching her vegan YouTube channel in 2017, Rachel has gained a heap of hungry followers who lap up her simple, delicious recipes (and the dance moves that go along with them). Dishes are often one-pot, can be prepped ahead, and most include a song recommendation so you can dance along as you cook. Within these pages, you’ll find plenty of meals inspired by Ama’s Caribbean and West African roots – from crispy jerk barbecue tacos or ackee “saltfish” with dumplings to peanut stew. Although this is really a celebration of all cultures – and with vegan takes on everything from Thai green curry to creamy cashew and vegetable no-pasta lasagne, we’re pretty confident you’ll find your favourite comfort dish has been given a plant-based makeover. With most ingredients easy to obtain and meals quick to put together, this is modern cooking, for the meat-shunning millennial.
3/13 ‘BOSH! Healthy Vegan’ by Henry Firth & Ian Theasby. Published by HQ: £10.87, Amazon
Working with a registered dietician to ensure recipes follow trusted NHS guidelines, the BOSH! boys (aka, Henry and Ian) have bought us their healthiest cookbook to date. Recognising that just because a plate of food is vegan, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s healthy (vegan junk food certainly exists!), this is a collection of 80 new recipes showcasing their flavoursome vegan food with a healthier focus. Along with advice on sleep, movement and relaxing, there’s guidance on ensuring you get all the nutrients you need. And although the boys insist this isn’t a diet book, you’ll find recipes to help you reduce fat, build muscle and generally be a bit healthier. So whether you’re looking to up your protein intake (try the ultimate veg tacos), reduce your sugar intake with a summer-berry granola bowl or keep your calorie intake to under 500 per portion with puttanesca potato stew, you should be left feeling suitably inspired to kick start the new year.
4/13 ‘Happy Vegan: Easy plant-based recipes to make the whole family happy’ by Fearne Cotton. Published by Seven Dials: £13.46, Amazon
Despite Fearne Cotton not being a fully-fledged vegan herself (or perhaps because), this book got rave reviews from our panel, with both flexitarians, meat-eaters and vegans alike. Recipes are approachable, inexpensive and perfect for the whole family, so we can see ourselves working through them all in time. The broccoli katsu curry was a particular favourite and surprisingly easy to make and for tea time we’ll be trying our hand at her date and almond cake with caramel sauce which uses white miso paste and coconut cream to great effect.
5/13 ‘Vegan One Pound Meals: Delicious budget-friendly plant-based recipes all for £1 per person’ by Miguel Barclay. Published by Headline Home: £10.75, Amazon
If ever there’s a time we feel the pinch, it’s January, with the festivities of Christmas long behind us but the credit card still to pay. Thankfully eating a plant-based diet could be the answer and in this book, you’ll find over 85 recipes all coming in at a frankly unbelievable £1 a portion. Our concerns that we’d be living off of beans on toast were quickly alleviated as we tucked into black bean meatballs and sticky aubergine bao. Full-flavoured, quick and easy, we couldn’t really ask for more.
6/13 ‘Incredible Plant-Based Desserts: Colorful Vegan Cakes, Cookies, Tarts, and other Epic Delights’ by Anthea Cheng. Published by Quarry Books: £11.89, Amazon
Calling all sweet-tooths! This collection of recipes from Australian blogger Anthea Cheng is celebratory food for the keen baker. You certainly couldn’t call dried rainbow pear slices convenient, quick or easy to make, however the impact they have when used to decorate her chai cake is truly show-stopping. If that all sounds a little intimidating, we found the Snack Time chapter much more manageable, with the likes of bliss balls, chocolate cups and cookies vying for attention, as well as Instagrammable breakfast bowls, beautifully presented with nut butters, granola and oats.
7/13 ‘Dirty Vegan Another Bite’ by Matt Pritchard, published by Octopus Books: £20, Octopus Books
After 10 years of hard partying finally caught up with him, Matt decided to switch from the crazy pranks of MTV’s Dirty Sanchez to fitness – and is now a completely vegan endurance athlete. Believing a natural diet is key, Matt’s second cookbook is brimming with recipes full of veggies and largely focuses on un-processed ingredients (keeping the vegan cheese or meat-substitutes to a minimum). Some of Pritchard’s favourites include roasting tin laksa, sticky tofu bao buns and rhubarb and custard doughnuts. If you’re yet to convince your pal’s that veganism is the way forward, we reckon the Dinner with Mates chapter will convert a few of them, with all the recipes you need to create a Mexican feast, a perfect picnic, a banging BBQ or a cracking Christmas spread. All in all we found recipes really varied, with us ear-marking nearly all of them to try at once.
8/13 ‘5 Ingredient Vegan’ by Katy Beskow. Published by Quadrille: £12.08, Amazon
Let’s face it, at the end of a long day the last thing any of us want to be doing – whether we’re following a plant-based diet or not – is trying to track down long lists of hard to find ingredients. This is the fourth book from the award-winning cook, writer and cookery tutor Katy Beskow and follows a similar simplified format, with each recipe requiring just five ingredients. Chapters include soups, lunches suppers, sweets and basics, with recipes beautifully laid out and gorgeous photography accompanying each one. Far from being basic, we were amazed to see we could create a beautiful Mediterranean briam (a layered courgette, potato and red onion bake from Greece) which was as delicious hot with crusty bread as it was cold for lunch the next day.
9/13 ‘Zaika: Vegan recipes from India’ by Romy Gill. Published by Seven Dials : £10, Amazon
Growing up in a small town in West Bengal, India, very few people, including Romy Gill’s own family, ate meat regularly. It’s this home-cooked vegan food of her childhood that the chef and food writer wanted to share with us through her debut cookbook Zaika – meaning taste, or flavour. There’s an entire section dedicated to bread, including gram flour turmeric pancakes which are perfect with chutneys, a variety of rotis and parathas and light naan bread with nigella seeds. The Light & Breezy chapter is all about showcasing the freshest ingredients – think watermelon and mint salad; while the Warming the Heart chapter is where you’ll find hearty comfort food such as spicy red lentil dahl. The section we most fell for though was Labours of Love for when you’ve got time to really get lost in the kitchen – rich, creamy and so warming, we recommend the Baingan masala with baby aubergines, dill and coconut.
10/13 ‘Rebel Recipes: Maximum flavour, minimum fuss: the ultimate in vegan food’ by Niki Webster. Published by Bloomsbury: £18, Amazon
The debut book from award-winning blogger and food consultant Nikki Webster shares the same ethos as her blog Rebel Recipes – that healthy food needn’t be boring or lacking in flavour. Taking inspiration from around the globe, you could never accuse these recipes of being dull. If only we could start every day with creamy spiced coconut porridge and sticky sesame banana! Instead of relying on stale vegan ingredients and recipes – this is new-school vegan cuisine for those seeking full flavours. Although despite this, recipes were easy to follow and largely uncomplicated – with lots of spicy curries, pulses, flatbreads, salads, dips and pickles making an appearance. With mouth-watering photography throughout, the Can’t Believe It’s Vegan Desserts chapter is a particular highlight, with the likes of chocolate ganache tart, easy espresso martini pots and lemon curd and thyme tart.
11/13 ‘Green: Veggie and vegan meals for no-fuss weeks and relaxed weekends’ by Elly Pear (Curshen). Published by Ebury Press: £14.99, Amazon
While this title isn’t 100 per cent vegan, half of the book is made up of plant-based recipes so we felt it was still well worth including. Acknowledging that most of us have more time to experiment in the kitchen at the weekend yet need dinner on the table pronto mid-week, Elly Pear’s book separates dishes accordingly. We’re very keen to incorporate more Sunday night batch-cooking into our weekly routine, in order to eat better later in the week and with tray bakes, one-pot wonders and freeze-able options, this will keep us suitably inspired.
12/13 ‘Vegan (ish): 100 simple, budget recipes that don’t cost the earth’ by Jack Monroe. Published by Bluebird: £10.66, Amazon
Don’t be fooled by the title, every one of the 100 recipes within this book is completely vegan. The “ish” comes from Jack Monroe’s belief that if we were all to incorporate a few more plant-based meals into our diet each week, we’d be better off both environmentally and financially. So you needn’t be a full-time vegan to appreciate the practical, inexpensive solutions within this book. Although perhaps not the sexiest food chapter to ever be written – the whole section on sandwiches was inherently helpful for midweek meal inspiration (especially when you consider the “standard” fillings of cheese, ham, tuna, etc obviously aren’t vegan). In true Jack Monroe style, we loved the no-nonsense, easy to follow recipes and believe we’ll turn to this cookbook on a regular basis.
13/13 ‘7 Day Vegan Challenge’ by Bettina Campolucci-Bordi. Published by Hardie Grant: £9.72, Wordery
If you’re tempted to give this vegan thing a whirl but you really don’t know where to start, the 7 Day Vegan Challenge is here to help. There are three menu plans to choose from complete with shopping lists: The Easy Peasy Way (quick meals for those that don’t mind repeating some dishes), For the Planners (which requires a Sunday night batch-cooking session) and Fast & Fresh (quick and simple recipes). So a typical weekday might look like, banoffee oats for breakfast, a convincing vegan take on the classic BLT sandwich for lunch and creamy satay noodles with salt and pepper fried tofu for tea.
There is also a helpful Q&A intro, which aims to answer the most commonly asked questions for those just starting out – including pros, cons, where you get protein from, is vegan food expensive and whether it’s healthy. Many meals are freezable or can last three days or longer in the fridge, so whether you give it a go for seven days or longer is up to you.
1/13
Veganuary becomes bigger every year, but it needn’t be just for Janaury as these cookbooks make it easy and accessible. Words by Stacey Smith
iStock/The Independent
2/13 ‘Rachel Ama’s Vegan Eats: Tasty plant-based recipes for every day’ by Rachel Ama. Published by Ebury Press: £12.87, Amazon
Since launching her vegan YouTube channel in 2017, Rachel has gained a heap of hungry followers who lap up her simple, delicious recipes (and the dance moves that go along with them). Dishes are often one-pot, can be prepped ahead, and most include a song recommendation so you can dance along as you cook. Within these pages, you’ll find plenty of meals inspired by Ama’s Caribbean and West African roots – from crispy jerk barbecue tacos or ackee “saltfish” with dumplings to peanut stew. Although this is really a celebration of all cultures – and with vegan takes on everything from Thai green curry to creamy cashew and vegetable no-pasta lasagne, we’re pretty confident you’ll find your favourite comfort dish has been given a plant-based makeover. With most ingredients easy to obtain and meals quick to put together, this is modern cooking, for the meat-shunning millennial.
3/13 ‘BOSH! Healthy Vegan’ by Henry Firth & Ian Theasby. Published by HQ: £10.87, Amazon
Working with a registered dietician to ensure recipes follow trusted NHS guidelines, the BOSH! boys (aka, Henry and Ian) have bought us their healthiest cookbook to date. Recognising that just because a plate of food is vegan, that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s healthy (vegan junk food certainly exists!), this is a collection of 80 new recipes showcasing their flavoursome vegan food with a healthier focus. Along with advice on sleep, movement and relaxing, there’s guidance on ensuring you get all the nutrients you need. And although the boys insist this isn’t a diet book, you’ll find recipes to help you reduce fat, build muscle and generally be a bit healthier. So whether you’re looking to up your protein intake (try the ultimate veg tacos), reduce your sugar intake with a summer-berry granola bowl or keep your calorie intake to under 500 per portion with puttanesca potato stew, you should be left feeling suitably inspired to kick start the new year.
4/13 ‘Happy Vegan: Easy plant-based recipes to make the whole family happy’ by Fearne Cotton. Published by Seven Dials: £13.46, Amazon
Despite Fearne Cotton not being a fully-fledged vegan herself (or perhaps because), this book got rave reviews from our panel, with both flexitarians, meat-eaters and vegans alike. Recipes are approachable, inexpensive and perfect for the whole family, so we can see ourselves working through them all in time. The broccoli katsu curry was a particular favourite and surprisingly easy to make and for tea time we’ll be trying our hand at her date and almond cake with caramel sauce which uses white miso paste and coconut cream to great effect.
5/13 ‘Vegan One Pound Meals: Delicious budget-friendly plant-based recipes all for £1 per person’ by Miguel Barclay. Published by Headline Home: £10.75, Amazon
If ever there’s a time we feel the pinch, it’s January, with the festivities of Christmas long behind us but the credit card still to pay. Thankfully eating a plant-based diet could be the answer and in this book, you’ll find over 85 recipes all coming in at a frankly unbelievable £1 a portion. Our concerns that we’d be living off of beans on toast were quickly alleviated as we tucked into black bean meatballs and sticky aubergine bao. Full-flavoured, quick and easy, we couldn’t really ask for more.
6/13 ‘Incredible Plant-Based Desserts: Colorful Vegan Cakes, Cookies, Tarts, and other Epic Delights’ by Anthea Cheng. Published by Quarry Books: £11.89, Amazon
Calling all sweet-tooths! This collection of recipes from Australian blogger Anthea Cheng is celebratory food for the keen baker. You certainly couldn’t call dried rainbow pear slices convenient, quick or easy to make, however the impact they have when used to decorate her chai cake is truly show-stopping. If that all sounds a little intimidating, we found the Snack Time chapter much more manageable, with the likes of bliss balls, chocolate cups and cookies vying for attention, as well as Instagrammable breakfast bowls, beautifully presented with nut butters, granola and oats.
7/13 ‘Dirty Vegan Another Bite’ by Matt Pritchard, published by Octopus Books: £20, Octopus Books
After 10 years of hard partying finally caught up with him, Matt decided to switch from the crazy pranks of MTV’s Dirty Sanchez to fitness – and is now a completely vegan endurance athlete. Believing a natural diet is key, Matt’s second cookbook is brimming with recipes full of veggies and largely focuses on un-processed ingredients (keeping the vegan cheese or meat-substitutes to a minimum). Some of Pritchard’s favourites include roasting tin laksa, sticky tofu bao buns and rhubarb and custard doughnuts. If you’re yet to convince your pal’s that veganism is the way forward, we reckon the Dinner with Mates chapter will convert a few of them, with all the recipes you need to create a Mexican feast, a perfect picnic, a banging BBQ or a cracking Christmas spread. All in all we found recipes really varied, with us ear-marking nearly all of them to try at once.
8/13 ‘5 Ingredient Vegan’ by Katy Beskow. Published by Quadrille: £12.08, Amazon
Let’s face it, at the end of a long day the last thing any of us want to be doing – whether we’re following a plant-based diet or not – is trying to track down long lists of hard to find ingredients. This is the fourth book from the award-winning cook, writer and cookery tutor Katy Beskow and follows a similar simplified format, with each recipe requiring just five ingredients. Chapters include soups, lunches suppers, sweets and basics, with recipes beautifully laid out and gorgeous photography accompanying each one. Far from being basic, we were amazed to see we could create a beautiful Mediterranean briam (a layered courgette, potato and red onion bake from Greece) which was as delicious hot with crusty bread as it was cold for lunch the next day.
9/13 ‘Zaika: Vegan recipes from India’ by Romy Gill. Published by Seven Dials : £10, Amazon
Growing up in a small town in West Bengal, India, very few people, including Romy Gill’s own family, ate meat regularly. It’s this home-cooked vegan food of her childhood that the chef and food writer wanted to share with us through her debut cookbook Zaika – meaning taste, or flavour. There’s an entire section dedicated to bread, including gram flour turmeric pancakes which are perfect with chutneys, a variety of rotis and parathas and light naan bread with nigella seeds. The Light & Breezy chapter is all about showcasing the freshest ingredients – think watermelon and mint salad; while the Warming the Heart chapter is where you’ll find hearty comfort food such as spicy red lentil dahl. The section we most fell for though was Labours of Love for when you’ve got time to really get lost in the kitchen – rich, creamy and so warming, we recommend the Baingan masala with baby aubergines, dill and coconut.
10/13 ‘Rebel Recipes: Maximum flavour, minimum fuss: the ultimate in vegan food’ by Niki Webster. Published by Bloomsbury: £18, Amazon
The debut book from award-winning blogger and food consultant Nikki Webster shares the same ethos as her blog Rebel Recipes – that healthy food needn’t be boring or lacking in flavour. Taking inspiration from around the globe, you could never accuse these recipes of being dull. If only we could start every day with creamy spiced coconut porridge and sticky sesame banana! Instead of relying on stale vegan ingredients and recipes – this is new-school vegan cuisine for those seeking full flavours. Although despite this, recipes were easy to follow and largely uncomplicated – with lots of spicy curries, pulses, flatbreads, salads, dips and pickles making an appearance. With mouth-watering photography throughout, the Can’t Believe It’s Vegan Desserts chapter is a particular highlight, with the likes of chocolate ganache tart, easy espresso martini pots and lemon curd and thyme tart.
11/13 ‘Green: Veggie and vegan meals for no-fuss weeks and relaxed weekends’ by Elly Pear (Curshen). Published by Ebury Press: £14.99, Amazon
While this title isn’t 100 per cent vegan, half of the book is made up of plant-based recipes so we felt it was still well worth including. Acknowledging that most of us have more time to experiment in the kitchen at the weekend yet need dinner on the table pronto mid-week, Elly Pear’s book separates dishes accordingly. We’re very keen to incorporate more Sunday night batch-cooking into our weekly routine, in order to eat better later in the week and with tray bakes, one-pot wonders and freeze-able options, this will keep us suitably inspired.
12/13 ‘Vegan (ish): 100 simple, budget recipes that don’t cost the earth’ by Jack Monroe. Published by Bluebird: £10.66, Amazon
Don’t be fooled by the title, every one of the 100 recipes within this book is completely vegan. The “ish” comes from Jack Monroe’s belief that if we were all to incorporate a few more plant-based meals into our diet each week, we’d be better off both environmentally and financially. So you needn’t be a full-time vegan to appreciate the practical, inexpensive solutions within this book. Although perhaps not the sexiest food chapter to ever be written – the whole section on sandwiches was inherently helpful for midweek meal inspiration (especially when you consider the “standard” fillings of cheese, ham, tuna, etc obviously aren’t vegan). In true Jack Monroe style, we loved the no-nonsense, easy to follow recipes and believe we’ll turn to this cookbook on a regular basis.
13/13 ‘7 Day Vegan Challenge’ by Bettina Campolucci-Bordi. Published by Hardie Grant: £9.72, Wordery
If you’re tempted to give this vegan thing a whirl but you really don’t know where to start, the 7 Day Vegan Challenge is here to help. There are three menu plans to choose from complete with shopping lists: The Easy Peasy Way (quick meals for those that don’t mind repeating some dishes), For the Planners (which requires a Sunday night batch-cooking session) and Fast & Fresh (quick and simple recipes). So a typical weekday might look like, banoffee oats for breakfast, a convincing vegan take on the classic BLT sandwich for lunch and creamy satay noodles with salt and pepper fried tofu for tea.
There is also a helpful Q&A intro, which aims to answer the most commonly asked questions for those just starting out – including pros, cons, where you get protein from, is vegan food expensive and whether it’s healthy. Many meals are freezable or can last three days or longer in the fridge, so whether you give it a go for seven days or longer is up to you.
Zoe Davies, a nutritionist at Action on Salt, agreed, adding that restaurants have a responsibility to provide customers with nutritional information so that they can make more informed choices.
“Making healthier choices isn’t always the easy option, but whereas much of the retail sector voluntarily displays clear nutrition information on the front of their packaging to help shoppers find the healthier options, the eating out sector have yet to be as transparent,” she said.
“We therefore need to see clear nutritional information displayed both online and on menus, to make it easier for diners to make genuine, informed healthy choices.”
A spokesperson for Wasabi told The Independent: “Wasabi are constantly looking to reduce salt content where possible and are currently developing new vegan dishes with lower salt in mind.
“Across the extensive Wasabi menu, there are also many dishes which offer a balanced meal”
The Independent has also contacted Bella Italia, Papa John’s and Chiquito for comment.
