The foods you should avoid

As the obesity crisis grows, an increasing amount of pressure is being put on food companies to reduce the salt, fat and sugar content of their foods, and to end the celebrity endorsement of some of their less healthy products. But which are the worst offending foods on supermarket shelves and why do nutritionists believe that they can be so damaging?

Here, with the help of nutritionist Natalie Savona, author of The Kitchen Shrink, we have compiled our own list of the 30 worst foods that should carry health warnings on their content label. Some may seem obviously unhealthy if eaten in large amounts, but none makes that clear - which many observers feel needs to happen if future generations are to be protected from a host of fat-related diseases.

"The insidious side of food labelling is what irritates me most," says Savona, "particularly low-fat ranges called things like Be Good to Yourself, or Too Good to be True - which they are. You expect health food, but a lot of the flavour in food lies in fat, and if that is taken out, manufacturers need to compensate with something - usually sugar or salt - to get people to buy the product."

"Consumers and the Food Standards Agency have both said they want labels that state clearly whether a food is high in salt, or fat, and/or sugar," says Annie Seeley of The Food Commission, an independent watchdog.

"This will help all people to make informed, healthy choices. At present most manufacturers list only the sodium content."

The foods to avoid

1. Pot Noodle Fun Pots

Fatty, salty and of little nutritional benefit, these smallsize pots contain 8.6g fat and 1.75g salt each - and are marketed as a "fun" snack for children with enticements such as free tattoos.

2. Melton Mowbray Pork Pie

Pork pies may be traditional and much-loved, but a small (140g) one contains a massive 529 calories and 36.4g of fat including lard, hydrogenated vegetable oil and pork fat. "These are all saturated fats - it's a heart attack in a packet," says Natalie Savona.

3. Dairylea Lunchables

They are designed for children's lunchboxes, but contain a shocking 10.5g of fat and 1.9g of salt in one small pack. "It isn't just what they've got in them, but what they haven't," says Savona. "If a child is eating all this re-formed ham, refined flour, salt and saturated fat they will feel full, so be less likely to eat something healthy such as a satsuma afterwards, and the salty taste will mean their palate for plain natural foods is diminished."

4. Sunny D

Yes, it contains vitamin C and a tiny proportion of fruit juice (15 per cent), but otherwise, it's a mixture of water, sugar, flavouring, thickening agents and preservatives. "What's wrong with fruit juice?" asks Savona.

5. Tamar Foods' Deep Filled Cornish Pie

Dietary disaster in a pastry case: 43.7g fat, 3.9g salt and 707 calories per 275g serving.

6. Coca-Cola

Best loved of all cola brands, but each 500ml bottle contains a whopping 10 tsp of sugar.

7. Ribena

Ribena only contains six per cent blackcurrant juice. The rest is water, glucose, fructose syrup, sucrose, citric acid and vitamin C. Each 250ml carton contains the equivalent of seven tsp of sugar (that's as much as one and a half packets of Rowntree's Fruit Gums). "This is advertised as a great source of vitamin C - which to me is deceitful," says Savona.

8. Kellogg's Pop Tarts

Each Pop Tart contains 5g of fat and 16g (three tsp) of sugar - and has no redeeming features in the form of added vitamins.

9. Kellogg's Ricicles

This cereal carries the Kellogg's stamps denoting heart health, concentration, physical energy and low fat, but the product is 40 per cent sugar - equivalent to adding four teaspoons of sugar to a bowl of plain cereal. "It is disgraceful that a refined cereal with so much sugar can advertise that it's good for your heart," says Savona. "Eating too much sugar can contribute to obesity, which is a factor for heart disease, and insulin, released by the body in response to a high sugar intake, can contribute to raising cholesterol production."

10. Nestlé's Cookie Crisp cereal

It's 41.3 per cent sugar. Why not just eat chocolate biscuits for breakfast and drop the pretence that the added vitamins make it anything other than unhealthy?

11. Bernard Matthews Dinosaur-shaped turkey nuggets

"People think, 'Turkey, that's nice lean meat," says Savona, "but here it is coated in junk." Very few chicken nuggets have anything to recommend them, whether they are shop-bought or from fastfood outlets. These dinosaur-shaped nuggets contain only 39 per cent turkey - and are 23 per cent fat.

12. Fruit Winders

The fruit content has been increased from 47 per cent to 70 per cent - but the product is still 36 per cent sugar and seven per cent fat, yet purports to be a healthy snack. "Healthwise, this is a con," says Savona. "You do not need to add oil and sugar to dried fruit pulp to make a tasty snack."

13. Muller Yogz

Toffee-and vanilla-flavoured yoghurt pots with candy-coated chocolate chips to sprinkle into them. It suggests itself as ideal for the lunchbox. It is yoghurt, but the added sugar, flavourings and colourings negate any supposed health benefit. "Pure yoghurt is a wonder-food," says Savona, "and this is just clever marketing, capitalising on that image."

14. Screamin' fruit Spurters

Sold in supermarkets alongside dried apricots as a "juicy-centred fruity snack"; in fact these are fruit-shaped gums with a liquid centre containing glucose, sugar and 34 per cent concentrated fruit juice, which makes them 55 per cent sugar. Added colourings and flavourings make this something to avoid. "These should be in the sweet department," says Savona.

15. Cheestrings

5g fat per stick of highly processed, salty and coloured cheese. "You'll notice these advertise the calcium content, but not the salt and the fat," says Savona.

16. Tweenies pasta

In April, Heinz is further reducing the salt content (which used to be 2g per 200g tin, the recommended daily maximum for a toddler, and is now 1.5g). "Where's the goodness in this?" asks Savona. She adds: "As soon as you see a marketing link with a TV show, you should become suspicious."

17. Hellema's Chocolate Peanut Cookies

Clearly sold as an indulgence, but at 6.8g of fat and 116 calories per biscuit, these should be saved for special treats only.

18. McCoy's crisps

This bag looks small but contains 50g of crisps, 15.3g of fat and 258 calories.

19. Jumbo sausage roll

Increases in portion sizes are a factor in the rapid rise in obesity. This 145g super-sized sausage roll contains 34.4g fat and 492 calories.

20. Cocktail sausages

Only 49 per cent meat, but high in fat (24 per cent), bulked out with rusk, stabilisers and flavourings - and all too easy to eat. "A joke food," says Savona. "Like frankfurters containing mechanically recovered meat, you think it's meat, but it's not really. It's junk."

21. Jordan's Muesli Break

This "Breakfast in a bar" contains healthy wholegrains, nuts and seeds - but with 5g of fat and 16g of sugar per bar these are not as healthy as they look.

22. Nesquik Cereal Bar

"A clever idea, but it's nasty marketing," says Savona. "You think you're doing your child a favour, but you're not." Each bar contains as much calcium as a third of a pint of milk but also it is 36 per cent sugar and 14.9 per cent fat - so it's not an ideal way to get the calcium, especially as there is no magnesium present to aid the absorption of the calcium.

23. Milky Way spread

This proclaims itself "rich in calcium, magnesium and vitamins". The product is 34.5 per cent fat - but worse is the fact that it suggests that spreading liquefied chocolate bars on your toast is a normal, and perhaps beneficial, thing to do. "You wouldn't give your children chocolate for breakfast," says Savona, "so why give them this?"

24. Sainsbury's Deep and Loaded pepperoni pizza

Generous amounts of cheese and fatty pepperoni mean this 10-inch diameter pizza contains 60.8g of fat, 8.5g salt and 1,502 calories. "At least this makes no pretence of being a health food," says Savona. "You know you are being sold a short cut to a heart attack."

25. Vodka Caramel Mudshake

Caramel-flavour milk drink - with alcohol. Each bottle is four per cent proof, and contains 1.1 units of alcohol. Milk-based alcoholic products have been banned in New South Wales over concerns that they encourage under-age drinking.

26. WeightWatchers Chocolate Brownies

Described as "sponge cakes with chocolate icing with sugar and sweetener", these are 48.9 per cent sugar. Yes, they are only 3.8 per cent fat, and contain only 143 calories per brownie, but replacing the fat of a normal brownie with sugar does your body no favours.

27. School bars

The name implies they're an ideal lunchtime snack - but less than half their content is fruit. The rest includes added sugar, glucose and concentrated fruit juice, as well as oil and flavouring.

28. King-size Snickers bar

"It is not good, psychologically, to forget what a normal bar-size looks like," says Savona. At 510 calories and 26g fat, this provides more than a third of the daily calorie requirement for a woman who is trying to watch her weight.

29. Heinz Cream of Tomato Soup in microwaveable cup

The 3g of salt it contains will do nothing for your health.

30. McVities "Go Ahead" Crispy apple & sultana slices

Biscuits are the first thing that anyone watching their weight should cut down on - they're high in refined carbohydrates, including sugar. These are sold as a "healthier choice" biscuit, but are still 40 per cent sugar and 7.9 per cent fat. Savona says: "They are not a healthy choice."