Fish & Chips

Fish and Chips is one of Britain's favourite traditional foods. It is almost as traditional as Roast Beef and Yorkshire Puddings to many and is a much cheaper and better value alternative to other fast foods such as pizza or kebabs. And if you don't fancy fish with your chips, there is today a much larger choice of food available at the local chippy such as sausages, fried chicken, chicken nuggets, beef burgers and spam fritters. Many fish and chip shops these days also offer extras such as mushy peas, bread, gravy, baked beans and curry sauce.

A few facts about Fish and Chips:

• Cod and haddock account for around 45% of all fish consumed in Britain.
• In 1999 fish friers served up more than 283 million meals a year making it the most popular takeaway among the British population.
• There are over 8,600 fish and chip shops in the UK who served up around 49,200 tonnes of fish last year.
• The record for the most portions of fish and chips served up in one day by a fish and chip shop is over 4,000!

Apart from fish and chips being a delicious tasty dish, fish is very healthy being high in B vitamins and protein. Add potatoes (chips) to it and you've got yourself a nutritious, balanced meal. However, quite a lot of fat is used in frying and so eating bread or peas with your fish and chips will help to balance out the fat intake. Eating thick cut chips is much healthier than thin fries because they soak up less fat. Typically, thin fries contain around 15% fat compared to 7% in thick cut chips. However, many Fish and Chip shops use chips which have already been partially cooked and then frozen. The 'second' frying can increase the fat content to around 12%.

Oily fish such as mackeral, herring, sardines and pilchards are very good for you too. They are good sources of protein, vitamins and are also high in unsaturated fats. Health guidelines suggest eating oily fish at least twice a week......