Worries about eating chicken were mounting among Britain’s increasingly health-conscious consumers even before Europe’s latest bird flu scare, a survey showed on Wednesday.

Some 57 percent of respondents said they were worried about the safety of chicken meat, up 6 percent from the previous year, according to the national poll by the UK’s Food Standards Agency conducted between Sept. 5 and Oct. 16.

The deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu first reached mainland Europe on Oct. 15 when it was confirmed in Romania. The virus has killed more than 90 people and resulted in the deaths of some 200 million birds since it re-emerged in Asia in late 2003.

Britain has had a series of food debacles in recent years, including mad cow disease, or BSE, in the 1990s and foot-and-mouth in 2001, and the poll showed more UK consumers were trying to eat more healthily.

“It’s encouraging that the agency’s survey shows a growing awareness among consumers towards healthier eating,” said Gill Fine, consumption and dietary health expert at the FSA.

The amount of salt and fat in food topped the list of food issues to worry 62 and 58 percent of respondents respectively.

Many more people were now claiming to be eating more vegetables and fruit compared with a year earlier.

The survey was carried out by UK pollster TNS for the agency. TNS interviewed more than 3,000 people from a representative sample of the population.