Hong Kong's most popular dish - instant noodles - is so full of fat and salt that it could damage children's health if eaten too often, Australian research shows.
The average pot of noodles contains about the same amount of fat as 1.5 Mars bars or a quarter of a pizza, and more salt than young children should be consuming in a day, the Australian Consumers' Association found.
Supermarket surveys have shown instant noodles are the most popular item bought by Hong Kong shoppers, and government statistics show more than 27 million kilograms of instant noodles were imported last year. That amounts to about 30 bowls a year for every adult and child in the SAR.
'Two-minute noodles are far too high in salt to be eaten regularly,' the association said. 'Almost all two-minute noodles are extremely high in salt - mainly from the flavour sachet. And there's a lot more fat in them than you might expect - an average of 15 grams per serving. That's about the same as you'd get in a cup of hot chips or a quarter of a medium-sized pizza.' A Mars bar has 10.8 grams of fat.
Much of the fat in pot noodles came from palm oil, 'the bad type when it comes to heart disease', the association said.
The association's senior food policy officer, Rebecca Smith, said from Sydney yesterday that adults should eat no more than 920 to 2,300 milligrams of salt a day, and children aged four to seven just 460 to 1,730 milligrams daily. Too much salt can cause asthma, kidney stones, stomach cancer and heart disease.
The noodle brands tested in Australia - several of which are sold in Hong Kong - had an average of 1,700 milligrams of salt in each serving. Most of the pot noodles sold here have no nutritional information on their packaging, so consumers have no way of comparing the fat and salt levels in different brands.