If you’re partial to a doner kebab, chances are you’ve walled off the part of your brain that asks what goes into those rotisserie meat cylinders.
They’re a staple of British nights out and we’re collectively consuming tonnes of the stuff on a nightly basis, all whilst ignoring the fact that those strips of meat aren’t exactly forthcoming with what they’re made of.
If you’re ready to know the truth and see the world of doner kebabs through new eyes, read on.
Food Unwrapped’s Jimmy Doherty collected nine doner kebabs from nine different takeaways, and then sent those samples off to forensic scientist Paul Hancock for testing.
Generally speaking, doner meat is generally composed entirely of lamb meat, although it’s not unheard of for off-cuts of other animals to end up in the mix.
During the tests, Hancock was looking for DNA from other meats, including beef, chicken, pork, horse, donkey, and goat.
Of the tested samples, only one of nine came back as containing 100% lamb DNA, while the other eight did indeed contain meat from other animals.
"There [was] only one doner kebab that is actually the real deal,” said Hancock.
"Most of them contain chicken. We've also got a couple which contain beef. Fortunately, we found no goat, no donkey, and no horse in any of the products."
Well, that’s a relief!
Doherty asked Hancock what the results might show if he had a larger sample size, to which he replied: "If I gave you 900 doner kebabs, who knows the kind of results we'd have found?”
"I would expect to see probably around a 60 percent failure rate,” said Hancock. “That would probably be typical."
The revelations stunned Food Unwrapped’s YouTube audience who promptly took to the video’s comments section.
“Even if I could overlook the rubbish mixed in with the meat, the fact that these meats are heated and cooled many, many times bothers me,” said one surprised kebab fan.
“Scary,” said another. “What is really sad is that only one store out of nine used [pure] lamb. If they can get away with it and it costs them nothing, they will do it!"
“This is important to know,” another chimed in. “Often these kebab shops people tell people it's lamb but in reality it contains beef and pork too. We might not care what it’s made of but we still should be able to make informed decisions, and they should punish these people who just add random stuff.”
Not everyone is fussed though.
One iron-stomached kebab fan said: "As long as they taste like they do I'd still eat them even if it had humans in it.”
Another chimed in: "I don't care what it is made of - as long as all the ingredients are honestly listed so I can make an informed choice."
Featured Image Credit: Jack Taylor/Getty Images)Topics: UK Food, Restaurants and bars
Kerri-Ann Roper