Healthy Eating in Nottingham: Calories in Mushy Peas, Stilton, Cobs and a Radford Road Balti

What does Nottingham actually eat?

Nottingham eats like a big student city with a long memory. Almost 62,000 students attend its universities, so late-night takeaways and cheap lunches are part of the economy. The 2021 census counted 323,632 people in the city, 14.9% of them Asian and 10.0% Black, and their kitchens shape the food on Radford Road, in Sneinton and in Hyson Green, which has the largest ethnic minority population in the city. Wikipedia also records that Nottingham has two Michelin-starred restaurants and a reputation as one of the UK’s most vegan-friendly cities.

Underneath that sits older Nottinghamshire food. The Goose Fair on the Forest Recreation Ground, which ran from 25 September to 4 October in 2026, still sells mushy peas with mint sauce. Stilton is one of the few cheeses whose name is protected by county: it may only be made in Derbyshire, Leicestershire or Nottinghamshire. The Bramley, England’s main cooking apple, grew from pips planted in Southwell in 1809. And across the city a bread roll is a cob.

This guide puts numbers on that food. Most of it comes from independent cafés, market stalls and takeaways too small to print calories, so the figures below use McCance and Widdowson’s Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset (CoFID) 2021, the UK government’s food tables, which give values per 100 g. The portion sizes are our own estimates of a typical serving, so treat each total as a guide rather than a label.

How many calories are in Goose Fair mushy peas?

A cup of mushy peas with mint sauce, the Goose Fair classic, is one of the lighter things you can eat in Nottingham. CoFID puts canned mushy peas at 81 kcal and 5.8 g of protein per 100 g, with 0.7 g of fat. A 200 g serving with a tablespoon of mint sauce comes to about 177 kcal and 12 g of protein. The fair’s other staples, hot dogs, doughnuts and candy floss, are where the calories are.

Stilton is a fair trade for its size. Thirty grams, a generous wedge on a crusty cob, adds 123 kcal and 7 g of protein; the whole cob-and-cheese lunch is about 306 kcal and 14 g of protein. A pork pie is the opposite: 518 kcal for 14 g of protein, because most of its weight is pastry and fat. Stewing Bramleys without sugar halves their calories against the sugared version, and they are sharp enough to take it.

Is a bacon cob a good breakfast before training?

A bacon cob can be a sound Nottingham breakfast if you choose the bacon. A 70 g soft white cob with 50 g of grilled back bacon comes to about 321 kcal and 18 g of protein on CoFID’s figures. Ask for fat-trimmed back bacon in a wholemeal cob and it drops to about 278 kcal with 20 g of protein: fewer calories and more protein from one change at the counter.

Pair it with porridge on a training day. Three hundred grams of porridge made with semi-skimmed milk is about 252 kcal and 14 g of protein, enough to carry you through a 7 AM session and the morning after it. Two poached eggs add 179 kcal and 16 g of protein if you need more.

How many calories are in a curry from Radford Road or Hyson Green?

Many of Nottingham’s South Asian kitchens and grocers are in and around Hyson Green, a district with 2 gurdwaras, 3 Hindu temples and 11 mosques, where Radford Road had two Asian supermarkets in 2013. The headline from CoFID is that the curry is rarely the problem. A retail chicken balti is 105 kcal and 10.5 g of protein per 100 g; it is the bread, the rice and the fried starters that stack up.

A 400 g chicken balti with a 160 g naan is about 876 kcal and 55 g of protein; the naan is 456 kcal of that. Swap it for two plain chapatis, 80 g in all, and the meal is about 582 kcal with 48 g of protein. Add 150 g of masoor dahl for fibre and you are still at only 793 kcal with 59 g of protein. If you want the most protein per calorie, 250 g of tandoori chicken gives 69 g of protein for 535 kcal.

What about Caribbean food in Nottingham?

With one Nottingham resident in ten recording a Black ethnicity in the 2021 census, Caribbean takeaways are part of everyday eating in the city. CoFID covers the staples: rice and red kidney beans, the dish Caribbean menus call rice and peas, is 158 kcal and 5.2 g of protein per 100 g, and fried ripe plantain is 267 kcal per 100 g. CoFID has no entry for curry goat or jerk chicken, so we use its stewed chicken leg, meat only, at 176 kcal and 25 g of protein per 100 g, as the nearest guide.

The lighter plate keeps almost all the protein and drops about 280 kcal, by leaving out the plantain and taking a smaller scoop of rice. The vegetable curry, at 60 kcal per 100 g in CoFID, adds bulk for very little.

Where in Nottingham will you see calories printed?

Since 6 April 2022, businesses in England with 250 or more employees have had to print calories on menus, with the line “adults need around 2000 kcal a day”, and the rule covers delivery apps. So the chains in the Victoria Centre and around the Old Market Square show a number, and so does a chain order on your delivery app in Beeston or Arnold. The independents around Sneinton Market, the cafés of Hockley and most takeaways on Radford Road are too small to be covered, which is where this guide’s tables come in.

The NHS puts the average man’s daily need at 2,500 kcal and the average woman’s at 2,000. Those are the starting points for the two days below.

What does a Nottingham fat-loss day look like?

Here is a day of ordinary Nottingham food that comes to about 1,603 kcal and 128 g of protein: roughly 400 kcal under the NHS’s 2,000 for an average woman, with a session with us at 12:15 PM. For an average man, add 150 g of basmati rice at dinner and a crusty cob with 30 g of Stilton in the afternoon, and the day is about 2,085 kcal with 146 g of protein, about 415 kcal under 2,500.

This day keeps a curry in it on purpose. A plan that bans the Friday takeaway lasts until the first Friday; one that changes the bread and the starter keeps working.

And a muscle-gain day?

A muscle-gain day built from the same food comes to about 2,805 kcal and 200 g of protein, a little above the NHS’s 2,500 for an average man. The extra comes from more rice, a bigger plate at dinner and a beans-on-a-cob snack, not from a tub of protein powder.

How does a coach help with food in Nottingham?

MakeMyFitness is live online personal training: your coach joins on video, watches every rep and corrects your form in real time. Sessions run from 6 AM to 2:30 PM UK time, until 3:30 PM in summer, because our coaches are based in India. Our lead coach, Kumar Abhishek, is a Human Performance Nutritionist (K11 School of Fitness Sciences) as well as holding a Diploma in Personal Training, so the conversation about what you ate at the Goose Fair or on Radford Road happens in the same session as the squats.

We don’t write medical diets. If you have diabetes, kidney disease or a history of disordered eating, talk to your GP or a registered dietitian first. For anything else, the swaps in this guide are the kind your coach will help you make: cob, not pastry; chapati, not naan; dahl, not pakora.

For what a trainer and a gym cost across the city, see personal trainer prices in Nottingham; for parks, running routes and the weather by season, see staying fit in Nottingham. Our session times are on the Nottingham page, and the UK page lists the other cities we coach.