Post-Pub Kebabs Add 1000 Calories
4:33pm UK, Tuesday January 27, 2009
Doner kebabs in the UK have been found to contain the equivalent fat to drinking more than one and a half wine glasses of cooking oil.
A nationwide sample of the nutritional content of the takeaway meal found the average doner also contained close to an adult's entire daily recommended intake of salt.
Before adding salad and sauce the average kebab contained 1,000 calories but researchers found some with 1,990.
Last year food scientists tested a doner kebab containing 140g of fat - twice the amount a woman should eat in a day.
This was said to be the calorific equivalent to drinking a wine glass full of cooking oil.
The most gut busting kebabs in this latest study provide 346% of a woman's saturated fat intake, close to drinking two wine glasses of cooking oil.Given that 60% of kebabs have been found to contain cholesterol raising trans fats, fans of the takeaway could be risking their health.
Another big finding was that 35% of the meat sent to kebab shops listed a different meat species than was actually contained.
Six kebabs were found to include pork when it was not listed as an ingredient, two of which were described as Halal - which Muslims are permitted to eat.
Christopher Baylis told Sky News that Lacors want to make sure everyone is given the right information.
We had never assumed that kebabs were a health food option - but it was certainly surprising.
Christopher Baylis, Lacors spokesperson
"The labelling is on the kebabs when they come from the manufacturers. It is bad not to convey exactly what is in the kebab," he said.
The minute weight difference between a small and large kebab is also a problem, said chairman of Lacors, councillor Geoffrey Theobald.
"With obesity rates rising so rapidly in the UK, portion size is as important as what is being consumed," he said.
"Reducing portion size is an easy and cost-effective way for small businesses to help people eat sensibly."
The study sampled 494 kebabs from 76 councils and found that the calorie count varied up and down the country.
The average kebab in the North West of England contained 1,101 calories while in Scotland it was 1,084, in Wales 1,055 and 1,066 in south-west England.
The lowest calorie kebabs can be found in Northern Ireland where the snack weighed in at an average of 843.
About Me
- Peter
- I am Petro Dobromylskyj, always known as Peter. I'm a vet, trained at the RVC, London University. I was fortunate enough to intercalate a BSc degree in physiology in to my veterinary degree. I was even more fortunate to study under Patrick Wall at UCH, who set me on course to become a veterinary anaesthetist, mostly working on acute pain control. That led to the Certificate then Diploma in Veterinary Anaesthesia and enough publications to allow me to enter the European College of Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia as a de facto founding member. Anaesthesia teaches you a lot. Basic science is combined with the occasional need to act rapidly. Wrong decisions can reward you with catastrophe in seconds. Thinking is mandatory. I stumbled on to nutrition completely by accident. Once you have been taught to think, it's hard to stop. I think about lots of things. These are some of them.