Every Ben's Original rice and cooking sauce sold in the UK broken down by portion, checked against NHS daily limits from age 4 to adult.
Ben's Original, sold as Uncle Ben's until the brand was renamed, is the UK's best known packaged rice brand. It is now owned by Mars Food UK. The range splits into two very different halves: plain rice, and the cooking sauces designed to go with it.
That split matters more than the flavour on the front of the pack. The rice is one of the most nutritionally unremarkable products in any supermarket. The sauces are where the sugar and salt are.
Ben's Original long grain rice contains no salt to speak of, under 0.01g per 100g as prepared, and under 0.5g of sugar. A 140g cooked portion is around 220 calories, mostly carbohydrate, with 4.6g of protein.
The wholegrain versions are the meaningfully better option. Wholegrain boil-in-bag delivers 1.5g of fibre per 100g against 0.8g for long grain white, and slightly more protein at 3.8g. Nearly double the fibre for the same convenience and roughly the same calories.
The microwave pouches are where formulation starts. Plain pouches are close to the dry rice. The flavoured pouches add oil, salt, sugar, starches and seasonings, and their numbers vary widely by variety.
On the classic Sweet and Sour sauce, sugar is the third ingredient by weight, behind only water and tomatoes. That is the single most useful thing on the label. Salt appears further down, and the sauce also contains modified maize starch and paprika extract for colour.
A no added sugar version exists, sweetened with sucralose instead. It removes the sugar but does not simplify the product.
Because a jar is designed to serve four to six, the figure that matters is per portion of made-up dish, not per 100g of sauce, and that is the number most labels bury.
Each product page includes a full nutrition breakdown per portion as prepared, age-adjusted NHS sugar and salt calculations from age 4 to adult, an interactive calculator for your exact age band and portion, and a plain guide to what the ingredient list actually contains.
