Healthy Eating in Liverpool: Calories in Scouse, the Chippy and a Chinatown Takeaway

What does Liverpool eat, and can you train on it?

Liverpool’s food is better for training than its reputation. The city’s own dish, scouse, is a stew of diced meat, potatoes, carrots and onions, and it is where Liverpudlians got the name Scousers. A 400 g bowl of it carries about 30 g of protein. The trouble is everything around it: the crusty bread and butter, the chippy on the way home, the Chinese takeaway after a match, and the sausage roll at 11 o’clock.

This guide puts numbers on the food people in Liverpool actually eat, so you can keep it and still lose fat or build muscle. The calorie and protein figures come from McCance and Widdowson’s Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset (CoFID 2021), the UK government’s food composition tables, multiplied up to the portions named, and from Greggs’ own nutrition page. They are averages: your chippy’s batter and portion sizes will differ.

Where a menu does show calories in Liverpool, it is the law at work. Since 6 April 2022, businesses in England with 250 or more employees that sell food for immediate consumption must print kcal per portion, with the line “adults need around 2000 kcal a day”. That covers the big chains in Liverpool ONE and on Church Street, but not most independent chippies, Chinatown restaurants or the cafés on Bold Street, so the tables below fill that gap. The NHS puts an average woman’s needs at 2,000 kcal a day and an average man’s at 2,500.

How many calories are in a bowl of scouse?

A 400 g bowl of scouse is about 430 to 480 kcal and 29 to 30 g of protein. CoFID has no entry called scouse, so we use its nearest match, homemade Irish stew, which has the same base of lamb, potatoes and onion. Lancashire hotpot, the North West’s other lamb-and-potato stew, comes out the same per 100 g. A beef scouse heavy on meat and light on potato is closer to CoFID’s homemade beef stew: fewer calories and far more protein.

Scouse is traditionally served with pickled red cabbage or beetroot and crusty bread. The pickles cost you almost nothing. The bread is where a 430 kcal bowl becomes 600 kcal, and a thick spread of butter on it adds more. If you are cutting, have the bowl and the beetroot and one roll, not two. Blind scouse, the meatless version made by families who couldn’t afford meat, is mostly potato and vegetables, so it is low in protein: add a tin of beans or a couple of boiled eggs on the side.

Fish and chips in Liverpool: what does a chippy tea cost in calories?

A Liverpool chippy tea of battered cod, a large portion of chips and mushy peas is about 1,240 kcal and 53 g of protein. That is more than half a day’s food for most adults. The fish is not the problem: 200 g of battered cod from a takeaway is 480 kcal with 34 g of protein. The chips are, at 642 kcal for 300 g.

The swap that matters is the size of the chips. Cod, 150 g of chips and mushy peas comes to about 923 kcal and 48 g of protein, a saving of 321 kcal for the same fish. Haddock is a touch leaner than cod in batter and plaice a touch richer. Mushy peas add protein and fibre for 122 kcal; curry sauce adds calories with almost no protein. A chip butty, chips in a buttered white roll, stacks two lots of starch, so keep it for the days you have trained hardest.

Chinatown and the Chinese takeaway: what should I order?

Liverpool’s Chinatown is home to the oldest Chinese community in Europe. Its first link to China dates from 1834, when a ship arrived from China with silk and cotton wool, and the community grew from the late 1860s when the Blue Funnel Line began employing Chinese seamen. The Chinese Arch on Nelson Street, opened at Chinese New Year in 2000, stands 13.5 m tall, and Chinatown now spreads along Berry Street and Duke Street. A Chinese takeaway is, as a result, as much a Liverpool habit as the chippy.

Sweet and sour chicken with egg fried rice comes to about 1,237 kcal and 40 g of protein. Swap the fried rice for boiled rice and it falls to about 1,030 kcal. A chicken chow mein on its own is 588 kcal with 34 g of protein, so it is the more efficient order of the three. Salt and pepper chips, a Merseyside takeaway favourite, start from the same chips as the chippy and are tossed in oil with onions and peppers, so treat a 300 g box as at least 642 kcal.

Greggs, pies and the matchday lunch: where do the calories hide?

A Greggs sausage roll is 347 kcal with 9.1 g of protein and 24 g of fat, according to Greggs’ own nutrition page. That is a small lunch’s worth of calories with about a third of the protein in a bowl of scouse. A 200 g individual beef pie from a shop is about 584 kcal and 18 g of protein. Neither is a disaster once a week; both add up fast as a daily habit on the walk from Lime Street.

On a matchday at Anfield or at Everton’s new Hill Dickinson Stadium on the waterfront, the pie and the pint are part of it. Plan around them: eat a high-protein breakfast and a lighter lunch, and count the pie as your evening meal’s starch. A doner in pitta is high in protein at 56 g, but at nearly 1,000 kcal it is a whole meal and then some. A chicken tikka masala with boiled rice is the steadier curry order.

What does a fat-loss day on Liverpool food look like?

Here is a day of about 1,790 kcal and 109 g of protein, built entirely from the food above, with a proper chippy tea at the end. For an average woman that is a little under the NHS’s 2,000 kcal guide; for an average man it is well under 2,500. Your coach adjusts the portions to your size and training.

The day works because the big meal keeps its fish and loses half its chips, and the lunch is a protein-rich stew rather than a pastry. Drinks aren’t counted: tea with milk adds little, but a pint of lager or a sugary fizzy drink adds a lot.

How do I eat for muscle gain on Liverpool food?

To build muscle you need more food and plenty of protein spread across the day. This day comes to about 2,500 kcal and 174 g of protein, and every item is something you can buy in a Liverpool supermarket or takeaway.

On heavy training days, add a Greggs sausage roll mid-morning and you are at about 2,844 kcal. The breakfast here is a lighter take on the full English: grilled, fat-trimmed back bacon is 214 kcal per 100 g, while the same weight of fried streaky bacon is 335 kcal. Keep the eggs and the beans; they are where the protein is.

How can I order healthily in Liverpool without weighing food?

• At the chippy: order a small chips or share a large; keep the fish and add mushy peas instead of curry sauce.
• In Chinatown or at the takeaway: choose chow mein or a dish with boiled rice over sweet and sour with egg fried rice, and skip the prawn crackers when you are cutting.
• Scouse at home: use lean lamb or beef, go easy on the butter on the bread, and fill the plate with the pickled cabbage or beetroot.
• At Greggs: count a sausage roll as a meal’s worth of fat, not a snack.
• On Bold Street and in the Baltic Triangle: cafés and food halls change their menus often; build your plate round a protein first and the sides second.
• On matchdays: have a big breakfast and a light lunch, then enjoy the pie.

Food is half of it. A coach on video three times a week, early or at lunchtime, is the other half. See what a personal trainer costs in Liverpool next to our prices, and how to stay fit in Liverpool for parks, weather and races. The Liverpool page shows our session times in UK time, and the UK page lists the other cities we coach, including London.