Doner kebab lovers ‘scared’ after finding out what goes into their favourite takeaway

People have been put off eating kebabs after finding out the truth of what really goes into their favourite takeaway.

As a weekend treat or just something to soak up the booze after a bender, many Brits flock to kebab shops for a tasty doner topped with chilli sauce, garlic and jalapeños.

Whatever it’s made of, it looks delicious and smells amazing as the juicy meat rotates around while you wait for your order.

But have you ever wondered what exactly makes up the doner meat? And do you even dare to find out?

Well, Jimmy Doherty decided to do just that for Food Unwrapped and he got down to the bare bones of what’s inside this British staple.

He collected nine different doner kebabs from as many establishments and took them to a lab for testing analysis, where scientist Paul Hancock put them under the microscope to find out what lurks within them.

Most of us take for granted that a lamb doner is exactly that and is therefore made up of 100% lamb meat. But Hancock put the takeaway treats to the test.

He searched for other meat sources including chicken, pork and beef, as well as horse, goat and donkey meat.

Low and behold, only one of the nine kebabs brought back to the lab came back as being made up of 100% lamb DNA – though we’re not sure which parts of the lamb specifically.

The rest came back as containing DNA of other animals, as Hancock said: “There’s only one doner kebab that is actually doing the real thing, is the real deal.

“Most of them contain chicken. We’ve also got a couple that contain beef. Fortunately we found no goat, no donkey and no horse in any of the products.”

When Doherty asked the scientist what he thought the outcome would be with a larger sample size, saying: “If I gave you 900 doner kebabs, who knows what kind of results we’d have found?”

Hancock replied: “I would expect to see around a 60% failure rate. That would probably be typical.”

The small scale investigation into what’s inside a doner kebab took a few people by surprise with one fan of the food saying they found it ‘scary’ to know.

One social media user posted in the comments section of the Food Unwrapped Youtube channel: “Even if I could overlook the rubbish mixed in with the meat, the fact that these meats are heated and cooled many times bothers me.”

Another said: “Scary! What is really sad is that only one store out of the nine used lamb. If they can get away with it and it costs them nothing they will do it!”

While someone else added: “This is important to know often these kebab shops people tell people it’s lamb but in reality contains beef and pork too. We might not care what its made of but still should be able to make informed decisions and they should punish these people who just add random stuff.”

Yet some weren’t as put off as you’d think, as one person wrote: “I don’t care what it is made of – as long  as the ingredients are honestly listed so I can make an informed choice.”

Someone else typed: “I hope my kebabs are up to scratch but after 18 pints of lager I tend not to question the ingredients…!” and another joked (hopefully): “As long as they taste like they do I’d still eat them even if it had humans in it.”