Can I eat kebab if I am on diet?
As an internal medicine specialist of 30 years of experience, I am daily asked questions like this one. I have to be ready all the time with numbers and facts and even the references of my opinion.
Asking questions like: Can I eat kebab if I am on diet, is common. The short answer is yes if you follow these 5 rules.
- Limit the amount of kebab meal per day to 75 gm (lamb meat) or 150 gm (chicken meat) at most.
- You should select the type of meat: the best is skinless chicken
- You should select the type of the type of sauce; avoid garlic, gentle spice is good.
- You should take more green salad.
- And finally, you should know that you may need to walk 33 minutes, 5km/hr to burn only 75 gm of doner kebab.
However, it’s not all about weight loss that is important. Some other components of kebab may affect your health in other ways and these should also be emphasized and will covered in brief in this article.
What are the main ingredients in a kebab meal?
Looking to the components of a kebab meal we will discover that they are four:
Meat:
Many types of meat can be used, including lamb (the commonest: New Zealand lamb shoulders are the best) poultry and even fish.
The form of the meat used also matters. It can be either ground (minced) or whole cuts.
Bread:
Pitta bread is commonly used
Sauce:
Mayonnaise, garlic are the commonly used.
Salad:
Different mixtures.
What are the nutritional facts of kebab?
These can differ widely according to the components used, and this is where modifications can be used to get its benefits and avoid its risks.
1. Meat:
Caloric content:
Meat is the main source of concern in a kebab meal. To get a better idea, here are the nutritional facts :
- Lamb kebab serving Calories in Doner Kebab totaling 839 calories of Lamb, Ground, (10.50 oz, around 300 gm)
- For ground Chicken, shish kebab, this can be reduced to 570 calories and this can be further lowered to 525 calories if skinless, skewed, shish kebab whole cut chicken breast, meat is used instead of lamb minced meat. (same weight, 300 gm, 175 calories/100 gm)
Fat content:
- 300 gm lamb doner kebab can give you 70 of total fat, which is nearly 100% of the dietary reference intake (DRI) which is the daily recommended intake of an adult (44-77 gm per day), monounsaturated fat 28 gm (that is 40% of total fat, double the highest recommended DRI of 15%-20%), polyunsaturated fat 6 gm (8% of total fat, around 100% of DRI of 5%-10% of total fat), saturated fat of 30 gm (that is 43% of total fat, which is 4 times the maximum DRI which is 10%) and 217 mg cholesterol which is 67% of the daily recommended amount of 300 mg . These values are the main reason of considering lamb meat doner kebab in the traditional way of preparation and with its additives a “time bomb”.
- On the other hand, for ground chicken shish kebab, the fat distribution is much different: 300 gm of it can give you only 52 gm of total fat (67% of DRI), saturated fat of 9 gm (that is 17% of total fat, which is less than double the maximum DRI which is 10%) and 195 mg cholesterol which is 65% of the daily recommended amount of 300 mg.
- For kebab made of whole cut skinless chicken, the values are much less. Total fat can be as low as 30 gm and 3 gm saturated fat.
2. Bread:
A large slice of pita bread (6-1/2’, 60 gm) gives you 165 calories. A white bread slice of 37 gm gives you 98 calories. So there is not much difference between types of bread regarding caloric value.
3. Sauce:
Mayonnaise 15 ml (a tablespoonful) gives 104 calories and a total of 11 gm fat.
4. Salad:
85 gm gives you 20 calories and negligible fat (if oil is added) in addition to fibers, vitamins and minerals.
How can kebab ingredients and calories affect you?
Some consider kebab the “healthiest fast food” ever and the others consider it a calorie bomb. Some nutritionists said eating two a week could cause a heart attack within 10 years. However, this can be avoided by increasing the share of fresh vegetables and fruits in your diet.
On the other hand, many muscle building programs will encourage you to use it in the “mass” phase when you are still building your muscle mass while discourage it while in the “definition phase ” when are trying to loose fat.
The key answer is what are your goals regarding weight loss and hence your daily calories intake limit. For example, let’s assume you are following a classic weight losing diet, which will determine the suitable daily calories intake according to your gender and activity. Your dietitian determined that your daily calorie intake that can maintain your current weight is 2500Kcal. Then, he decided to reduce your daily allowance of calories to 2000Kcal, and 30 minutes daily walking.
That means, you are expected to lose around 1Kg every week. Your shish kebab meal should not exceed 700 Kcal. That means you should not exceed 300 gm as serving.
Not only you need to pay attention to the calories in your meal, but you must in particular take in consideration its fat content. The fat content of some types of kebab as mentioned before, can harm your body if consistently taken; twice per week can be bad for you. They can increase your cholesterol levels especially the ”harmful ” one (LDL) and reduce the protective cholesterol (HDL).
The only way to avoid the potential harmful effects of eating kebab is by applying few simple rules. These rules aim at both aspects of the problem:
- The high caloric content of kebab
- The high fat content and the inappropriate mix of fat types.
I am on diet, how can modifications of kebab serving help me stay on track.
These are the health recommendations regarding kebab eating:
1 .Amount and time:
Most experts advice to distribute your daily caloric intake as follows:
- 300-400 Kcal for breakfast
- 500-700 Kcal for lunch
- 500-700 Kcal for dinner
- 200 Kcal for snacks
That means, it is preferred to avoid eating kebab on breakfast since you will need to reduce the intake of meat to a very low amount (chicken: 150 gm, lamb meat less than 75 gm, very unpractical)
2 .Type of Meat:
Try to avoid doner kebab and choose shish kebab instead with whole cuts of skinless chicken breasts. The upper limit of 75 gm lamb meat kebab or 300 gm chicken kebab should not be exceeded as this will exceed the daily reference intake for total and saturated fat.
Avoid minced kebab. It contains more fat than the daily recommended intake.
3 . Sauce:
Avoid mayonnaise and garlic sauce. They will burst the caloric content of your meal.
4 .Green salad:
Take different mixtures, bigger amounts. They can help you feel less hungry owing to their content of fiber, and also reduce the absorption of carbohydrates.