What's really in takeaway foodHow to eat healthier takeaway

Choose a chapatti instead of naan bread

Checklist

Indian and Chinese

• Avoid deep-fried dishes, such as battered food, prawn toast, samosas and spring rolls.
• Choose tandoori, steamed and stir-fried dishes.
• Go for curries with tomato and onion-based sauces, such as jalfrezi, instead of creamy sauces, such as kormas.
• Choose boiled or steamed rice over pilau or egg-fried rice.
• Choose a chapatti instead of naan bread.
• Include side dishes of vegetables and/or dhal (lentils).
• Go easy on the free extras, such as prawn crackers, poppadoms and sauces.

Share a pizza and side salad

Pizzas

• Avoid stuffed-crust pizzas.
• Choose veggie toppings instead of extra cheese or meat to limit fat and salt intake.
• Share a pizza with a friend and have a salad (not potato salad or coleslaw) on the side, and watch out for dressings.

How much exercise will burn off that takeaway?

A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips, the saying goes. But if do you succumb to the temptations of a takeaway, how much exercise will it take to burn it off?

Men:

Burn off those takeaway calories

Chinese (1,436 calories) 291 minutes exercise
Indian (1,338 calories) 271 minutes exercise
Pepperoni pizza (929 calories) 188 minutes exercise

Women:

Chinese (1,436 calories) 359 minutes exercise
Indian (1,338 calories) 335 minutes exercise
Pepperoni pizza (929 calories) 232 minutes exercise

How can takeaway information be improved?

We would not want to suggest that you deny yourself the treat of a takeaway. But we think you have the right to more information about what you are eating. We believe that takeaway menus should be better labelled. They could, for example, show low-calorie or low-salt dishes.

Some pizza chains already give nutritional information on their websites, which is welcome, but we think that this information should also be available at the point of sale.

Interestingly, there have been moves in New York to make restaurant chains with more than 15 branches display the calorie contents of the food on offer on menus, boards or by the food itself.

In March, Yo! Sushi became the first restaurant chain in this country to label its dishes according to the Food Standards Agency’s traffic lights system, which helps you identify which foods are high in fat, sugar and salt.

Yo! Sushi sets a good example for the whole restaurant and takeaway industry. And it is only fair that we should be given more information about the food we eat.