A new study from the University of Reading has found something most people probably suspected but didn't want to confirm: the salt in your takeout is likely higher than what the menu tells you.
Researchers tested popular dishes from UK restaurants and found that 47% of meals with salt information on the menu actually contained more sodium than advertised. Some single servings exceeded the entire recommended daily limit of 6g—one pasta dish alone contained 11.2g.
What's actually in your food
The variation was striking. Pasta dishes averaged 7.2g of salt per serving, while curry dishes ranged wildly from 2.3g to 9.4g depending on where you ordered. Meat pizzas clocked in at 1.6g per 100g, making them the saltiest item by concentration. The only bright spot: fish and chip shops, where salt is typically sprinkled on after cooking and only when you ask for it, came in at just 0.2g per serving compared to 1g from other outlets.
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Start Your News DetoxThe problem isn't negligence—it's the nature of restaurant cooking itself. Professor Gunter Kuhnle, who led the research, explains that "variations in preparation methods, ingredients used, and portion sizes mean food labels are often guesswork." Each cook adds salt differently. Different suppliers provide ingredients with different sodium levels. A kitchen can't measure every plate the way a factory can measure every packaged product.
This matters because the WHO estimates that excess salt intake contributes to 1.8 million deaths worldwide each year, mostly through high blood pressure and heart disease. In recent years, food manufacturers have quietly reduced salt in supermarket products—a shift that's actually worked. But the restaurant industry hasn't followed suit, and menu labels, the study suggests, offer little real protection.
"Menu labels are supposed to help people make better food choices," Kuhnle says, "but almost half the foods we tested with salt labels contained more salt than declared. The public needs to be aware that menu labels are rough guides at best, not accurate measures."
The research doesn't mean you should stop eating out. It means the responsibility for managing salt intake falls partly on you—asking for sauces on the side, requesting less salt in preparation, choosing fish and chips where salt is optional. It's not a perfect system, but it's more reliable than trusting the menu.
