Posh Nosh, Hasan’s, Ahmed’s and many, many more – for most students, these celebrated Oxford institutions need no introduction.
The local kebab van is just as integral a part of the University experience as formal halls and essay crises. When it’s late, cold, and you’re feeling a little bit worse for wear, food which would barely pass as edible in the cold light of day suddenly becomes irresistible.
But do students really know what goes into the polystyrene trays that the jolly kebab van proprietors dish up to their clientele?
Most shocking is the customers’ ignorance of just how many calories they are consuming.
A survey conducted by Cherwell showed that 60% of students chose the falafel kebab as the “healthy option”, over chips and the meat kebab.
In fact, we can reveal this dish averaged out at a whopping 1338 calories per portion, over half of the recommended daily allowance for women, and almost the same proportion for men.
The option which is actually the least calorific of the trio, the kebab, was not identified as the healthiest option by any of the respondents.
The average student woefully underestimates how many calories are in a kebab or a portion of chips by up to 50%. When asked to estimate how many calories were in a portion of chips, the average student answered 440 calories.
When the same question was put to kebab lovers, the answer came out at 610 calories.
An investigation conducted by Cherwell reveals the nutritional content of some of the most popular kebab van selections in all their calorific glory.
The results are little short of horrifying.
The average doner kebab at Ahmed’s contained 987 calories, with those sold at Hussein’s not much better, at 930 calories. However, the really surprising result came from that most innocuous of snacks – the chip. Just a single portion of chips at Hussein’s is laden with 1079 calories. A portion of Ahmed’s chips, often seen as the ‘healthier’ choice, has a ‘mere’ 1041.
The vendors of one van estimate that they sell at least 100 portions of chips on a busy night. That’s 107,900 calories that Oxonians attending just a single kebab van are eating every single evening.
And that’s all without sauces.
Bearing in mind that the recommended daily allowance is 2000 calories for a woman and 2500 for men, these figures are quite gruesome.
The level of fat in chips from both vans (averaging out at 70g) was 108% of the recommended daily allowance for a woman, and 88% for a man. Kebabs once more proved their slightly less dubious health credentials, containing 59g of fat (91% RDA for women, and 74% for men).
Despite containing the lowest number of calories out of the three foods tested, the nutritional content of the doner kebabs contained less obvious health risks. Both kebabs contained very high levels of protein – Hussein’s came in at 77g, Ahmed’s at 67g – both of which are well above those recommended for a healthy diet. The average adult male requires 56g per day and the average adult female just 45g.
The issues associated with over-consumption of the types of foods that are sold at kebab vans, include increased risks of coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes and some forms of cancer.
The analysis of a selection of food from local kebab vans Hussein’s and Ahmed’s was performed by Dr Neil Heppell and Professor Jeya Henry of the Functional Food Centre at Oxford Brookes University. The lab tested portions of Hussein’s chips, doner kebabs and falafel kebabs and Ahmed’s chips and doner kebabs.
However, national studies suggest that Oxford students may have escaped relatively lightly. A study, which sampled 494 kebabs across 76 councils, was published by the Local Authority Coordinators of Regulatory Services in January 2009, revealed that our city traders are by no means offering the unhealthiest fare.
The average kebab in the north-west was 1101 calories, compared to 1084 calories in Scotland, 1055 calories in Wales and 1066 calories in the south-east. By contrast, our local average of 959 calories seems marginally better, and even more so when held up against the button-popping 1990 calories hidden in the nation’s worst offenders.
Natalie Newton, an undergraduate at Christ Church, commented on the results, “This will definitely make me think twice before buying anything from a kebab van again.”
However, for some, it seems that the risk of an expanding waistline will not be enough to deter them from stopping by their local. As one chemistry undergraduate said, “Obviously kebabs aren’t the healthiest thing, but the way I see it, the protein goodness of the doner meat coupled with the carbohydrate of the pitta encompass all that’s needed for a wholesome and balanced diet. Knowing exactly how many calories is in every bite is really not going to stop me from eating them.”
Despite Government attempts to increase public awareness on health issues, it certainly looks like business is booming for kebab vans. Research published by the Food Standards Agency in 2006 found that 18.5% of doner takeaways posed a “significant” threat to public health, and 0.8% posed a threat alarmingly termed as “imminent”. Most definitely food for thought.
