Hospital meals for kids fail to meet school nutritional standards, shows survey

In addition, nearly one in three of all menu items would be classified 'red' for saturated fat or salt according to the Food Standards Agency's traffic light labelling scheme. The new research, carried out by Consensus Action on Salt and Health (CASH) and Sustain, revealed the shocking amounts of saturated fat and salt contained in popular main meals, snacks and desserts served on Britain's hospital children's wards when compared to equivalent school meals. Within the main meals, a 'chicken tikka masala and rice' served in a hospital was found to contain a massive 14 times more salt (2.20g vs. 0.15g/portion) and 8.5 times more saturated fat (6.0g vs. 0.7g/portion) than a 'chicken & vegetable balti with rice' served in a school. In another example, a lasagne contained nearly six times more salt than a lasagne served in schools (3.2g vs. 0.57g/portion). Professor Graham MacGregor of the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine and Chairman of CASH commented on these findings: "With everything we know about the risk of children developing high blood pressure and diet-related diseases such as obesity, it is vital to keep their consumption of salt and saturated fat as low as possible, whilst still being appetising" "When such great progress has been made on what pupils are eating in school it is shocking that children in hospitals are being ignored." The findings follow a report by food campaign group Sustain published in March, which concluded that in the last 10 years the government has wasted more than £54 million of public money on unsuccessful attempts for hospitals to improve their food on a voluntary basis. In contrast, since the mandatory school nutritional guidelines were introduced by the Government in 2005, to protect children's health by giving children the right mix of energy and nutrients, the number of children eating school lunches in England has seen a significant increase. Joan Walley MP has introduced a new Bill to Parliament which would introduce legal nutritional standards for all food served in public sector institutions, including all food served in state-run hospitals, care homes, universities and in the armed forces.