‘Healthy’ M&S vegan meals found to contain nearly ten times more sugar than meat alternatives

SO-called healthy M&S vegan meals have been found to contain nearly ten times more sugar than meat-based alternatives.

Its Plant Kitchen Butternut Almond and Pecan Nut Roast ready meal packs a whopping 34 grams of sugar and five grams of salt.

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M&S vegan meals have been found to contain nearly ten times more sugar than their meat-based alternatives[/caption]

That compares with just 3.6g of sugar and 1.65g of salt in a meat-based M&S Roast Beef Yorkshire Pudding Meal.

And some of its Asian veggie ready meals contain almost double the amount of dangerous saturated fats and salt as meat choices.

Shoppers were urged to check labels after our plant-based meals probe.

Health experts recommend no more than 30g of sugar, seven teaspoons, a day and 6g of salt.

Sainsbury’s vegan meals were also high in unhealthy content.

Tam Fry, of the National Obesity Forum, said: “Vegans should not be tempted into eating any foods which are so high in fat, sugar and salt.”

Zoe Davies, of Action on Salt, added that “a ‘plant-based’ or ‘vegan’ label does not automatically qualify a product as healthy”.