LACORS publish new study into contents of doner kebabs in UK

Tuesday 27 January 2009

LACORS, the Local Authority Coordinators of Regulatory Services, has today published a new study into the content of doner kebabs in the UK.

The study carried out by council food standards officers across the country sampled 494 doner kebabs, checking meat content, labelling and nutritional value.

The study found that, without salad and sauces, the average kebab contains:

• 98% of daily salt
• nearly 1000 calories
• 148% of daily saturated fat

LACORS also reports mislabelling of kebab meat, with meat species not declared or declared wrongly. In some instances, pork was present in samples labelled as Halal.

The Food Standards Agency’s Chief Scientist Andrew Wadge said: 'We welcome this new study. It is important that people are properly informed about the food they eat. However, our advice is that people don’t need to avoid doner kebabs altogether because of these findings. Like all types of food that is high in fat and salt they do not need to be cut out of your diet altogether.

'As part of a balanced diet, including plenty of fruit, vegetables and starchy foods, there is no reason why you can’t indulge in a doner kebab from time to time. Obviously, the more regularly you eat them the harder it is to achieve that healthy balanced diet.

'The mislabelling is obviously a concern and we will be working with these food businesses and local authority food enforcement officers to make sure that the correct labelling information is used on the meat.'