14 DAY TRIAL // Tired of getting complaints about the quality of kebabs in the United Kingdom, authorities decided to conduct a raid at 76 locations throughout the country, where they checked the aspect of the restaurants, analyzed hygienic conditions, and assessed how much calories, fat and salts a single of these fast-food take-outs contained. They are the favorite choice of meal for thousands of British citizens after a night out, therefore they have to always be fresh and healthy.
When the authorities received the test results, they couldn't believe their eyes – the sandwiches contained “shocking” amounts of salt and fats, on certain occasions exceeding several times the recommended daily dosage. An average kebab contained 98 percent of the salt intake a normal person was entitled to per day, as well as 1,000 calories, which was the equivalent to half a woman's daily intake. In addition, it comprised 150 percent the daily dose of saturated fats.
And that was just on average. In certain areas in northern England, kebabs bore as much as 1,990 calories, and nearly 4 times the recommended daily dose of saturated fats. More than 494 portions of the food were thoroughly analyzed for nutritional information before and after salad and sauces were added. The most severe breach in consumer safety, inspectors found, was that not all products contained the type of meat they were advertised to be based on.
Furthermore, some kebabs that were labeled as halal – fit to be consumed by practicing Muslims, who did not eat pork meat – tested positive for this type of meat, which constituted a severe affront to the entire community. “It is totally unacceptable that people with certain faiths are unknowingly eating meats that are against their beliefs. Labeling is a safeguard for people to help them make informed choices, so need to be accurate,” the Chairman of the Local Authority Coordinators of Regulatory Services (LACORS), Geoffrey Theobald, said.
“We would never consider kebabs part of a calorie-controlled diet, but the level of saturated fat and salt in some is a serious cause for concern. While some people may think they are making sensible choices by ordering a small kebab, this study showed little difference between small and large kebab weight,” he added.