Healthy Eating in London: Calories and Protein in the City’s Favourite Food

What does London eat, and where are the calories shown?

London eats from every kitchen its communities brought with them: Bangladeshi curry on Brick Lane, Turkish grills on Green Lanes, Lebanese cafés on Edgware Road, Caribbean food in Brixton, West African in Peckham, Punjabi in Southall and Cantonese in Chinatown, alongside the old East End plates of pie and mash and fish and chips. Borough Market, by London Bridge, traces its story back about 1,000 years and has stood on its current site since 1756. Most weekday eating, though, is a desk lunch from a chain and a delivery app at night.

That last part has made healthy eating in London easier than it used to be. Since 6 April 2022, any food business in England with 250 or more employees has had to show the calories in each item, along with the line “adults need around 2000 kcal a day”, and the rule covers delivery apps too. So the chain coffee shop near Liverpool Street and the chicken chain on your Deliveroo screen both print a number. The NHS puts the average man’s daily need at 2,500 kcal and the average woman’s at 2,000.

Independent restaurants, kebab shops and curry houses are usually too small to be covered, and that is where most of London’s food culture lives. For those dishes, this guide uses McCance and Widdowson’s Composition of Foods Integrated Dataset (CoFID), the UK government’s food composition tables. CoFID gives values per 100 g; the portion sizes below are our own estimates of a typical serving, so treat each total as a guide, not a label.

How many calories are in London fish and chips, or pie and mash?

The fish supper is sold in chippies across London, from Covent Garden to Walthamstow and Sidcup. The surprise in CoFID is the chips: thick chippy chips carry less fat per gram than thin fast-food fries, because there is less surface to soak up oil.

A typical supper of 250 g of battered cod, 300 g of chips and 150 g of mushy peas comes to about 1,364 kcal and 61 g of protein. The fish supplies two-thirds of that protein, the chips nearly half the calories. Share the chips or order a small portion and you save over 300 kcal without touching the cod; add the peas and you get almost 9 g of protein for 122 kcal.

Pie and mash is the harder one. A 200 g individual beef pie works out at about 584 kcal but only 18 g of protein, because most of its weight is pastry. If you’re eating it at a pie shop on Chapel Market or Tower Bridge Road, have it as the treat it is and get your protein elsewhere that day. CoFID has no entry for jellied eels, so we’ve left them out rather than guess.

Brick Lane, Tooting and Southall: what is in a London curry?

A London curry’s calories depend far more on the sides than on the curry. The sauces in CoFID’s tables are modest per 100 g; it is the naan, the pilau and the samosas on the side that add up.

Take a standard Friday order: 350 g of chicken tikka masala, 200 g of rice and a 160 g naan. That is about 1,236 kcal and 61 g of protein, and the naan alone is 456 kcal of it. Swap to 250 g of tandoori chicken with 150 g of rice and 150 g of dhal, and the meal drops to about 938 kcal while protein rises to 84 g. A takeaway chicken biryani is lighter than it looks, at 163 kcal per 100 g, but a 450 g box still gives only 38 g of protein.

The korma and rogan josh figures are for homemade versions. Restaurant sauces on Brick Lane or Upper Tooting Road are often richer, so read those two rows as the floor, not the ceiling.

Is a kebab from Green Lanes or Edgware Road high in protein?

North London’s Turkish grills on Green Lanes in Harringay and the Lebanese cafés along Edgware Road serve some of the highest-protein takeaway food in the city, if you order off the grill rather than the spit.

A 350 g doner in pitta with salad is about 868 kcal and 49 g of protein. A 200 g lamb shish in one pitta is about 729 kcal and 62 g of protein: 139 kcal less and 13 g more protein. A falafel wrap with houmous is about 581 kcal but only 18 g of protein, so it is a lighter meal rather than a high-protein one. Ask for the chilli sauce and salad rather than garlic mayonnaise and chips on top.

How many calories are in a London fry-up or Sunday roast?

London’s greasy-spoon caffs and its pubs supply the two big British meals of the week: a full English on Saturday morning and a roast on Sunday afternoon. Both can be high in protein; both get heavy fast.

The leaner fry-up keeps almost all the protein and drops about 357 kcal, mostly by grilling the bacon, choosing reduced-fat sausages and poaching the eggs. Most caffs will do that if you ask. At the roast, the meat is the protein and the potatoes are the calories: 200 g of roast potatoes is 322 kcal. Pile on the vegetables, take one Yorkshire pudding, and leave room for nothing else.

What should I eat for a desk lunch in the City or Canary Wharf?

Brick Lane’s round-the-clock bagel bakeries are a London institution, and a salt beef bagel is a better training meal than its reputation. An 85 g plain bagel with 100 g of salt beef comes to about 456 kcal and 36 g of protein, using CoFID’s figures for bagels and boiled salted silverside. Mustard adds almost nothing; a gherkin, nothing at all.

For the office lunch in the City, Canary Wharf or King’s Cross, the calorie label does the work. Greggs, for example, lists its sausage roll at 347 kcal and 9.1 g of protein for a 103 g roll, which is a lot of energy for not much protein. Read the labels for protein as well as calories: a sandwich with chicken, egg, tuna or salmon in it usually gives you more protein than a pastry for a similar number of calories.

Fish is worth planning for. The NHS advises at least two portions a week, one of them oily, with a portion around 140 g. That much baked salmon is about 325 kcal and 35 g of protein, and the sushi counters around Bank and Canary Wharf make it easy: salmon nigiri runs 152 kcal per 100 g in CoFID.

What about Chinatown, Brixton and the London chicken shop?

London’s Chinese takeaway, chicken shops and Caribbean kitchens are everyday food in much of the city. CoFID’s values show where the protein is, and where it isn’t.

A chicken-shop box of 250 g of coated chicken and 150 g of fries is about 1,102 kcal and 52 g of protein. Sweet and sour chicken with egg fried rice, 300 g of each, is about 1,140 kcal but only 36 g of protein. CoFID doesn’t list jollof rice or jerk chicken, so we have left them out; CoFID’s grilled chicken breast, at 148 kcal and 32 g of protein per 100 g, is a fair guide to unglazed chicken off a Brixton grill.

What does a fat-loss day of London food look like?

Here is a day of ordinary London eating that comes to about 1,963 kcal and 148 g of protein: roughly 540 kcal under the NHS’s 2,500 for an average man, with a training session at 12:30 PM. For a woman starting from the NHS’s 2,000, drop the pitta and the yogurt and the day is about 1,610 kcal with 134 g of protein.

How do I eat for muscle gain on London food?

Adding muscle needs more energy and steady protein. This day uses a caff breakfast, a Brick Lane bagel and a pub roast, and comes to about 2,426 kcal and 179 g of protein. Add a Greggs sausage roll and it is about 2,773 kcal.

How do I order healthily in London without weighing food?

• At the chippy: keep the fish, share or downsize the chips, add mushy peas. That saves over 300 kcal on a typical supper.
• At the curry house: order from the tandoor, swap one naan for rice and add a dhal. That cuts about 300 kcal and adds over 20 g of protein.
• At the kebab shop: shish over doner, one pitta, salad and chilli. That is 139 kcal less and 13 g more protein.
• At the caff: grilled, not fried; poached, not fried; reduced-fat sausages if they have them. That saves about 357 kcal.
• At the Sunday roast: fill half the plate with vegetables and take the potatoes as a side, not the base.
• At a chain: the law puts calories on the menu and the delivery app. Look for protein too, and favour a filling of chicken, egg, tuna or salmon over pastry.

We coach training, and our lead coach Kumar Abhishek is a Human Performance Nutritionist (K11 School of Fitness Sciences), so your sessions come with practical advice on eating around them. For what training costs in the capital, see personal trainer prices in London; for where to run and train by season, staying fit in London. Session times in UK time are on the London page, and the UK page covers the other cities.