What’s for Lunch? Chicken Kabobs (aka Street Meat)

You only have a few minutes for lunch and see the street vendor selling hot dogs, gyros and chicken kabobs in pita. You may be wondering if these are appropriate lunch choices.  In my quest to provide CGB readers with knowledge on healthy and not-so-healthy lunch choices, I decided to buy one of the chicken kabobs in pita and dissect it in the privacy of my home. I would weigh and measure it to determine the caloric content … and then eat it for lunch if it looked appealing and wasn’t too high in calories.

So I went to a street vendor across the street from the hospital where I work on York and 69th Street.  BTW – I was a little hesitant about eating food purchased from one of these vendors (given there has been some publicity in the past about cleanliness…) however there is always a long line at this particular vendor so I figured the food was probably ok.

I purchased a chicken kabob sandwich. It bascially consisted of a chicken kabob wrapped in a pita with some hot sauce. Nothing fancy. I noticed that the pita used for my sandwich was the last one in the plastic bag (that contained a food label!). So I asked the street vendor man if I could have it as I wanted to read the nutrition info.  He seemed to think this was a strange request but gave it to me.

My findings:
– pita (called “pre-oiled gyro bread) contained 250 calories and 3 grams of fat
– the chicken weighed 4 ounces and therefore contained ~ 180 calories and 4-5 grams fat 
– minimal fat was used in cooking
– the hot sauce contains negligible calories
– overall calorie content was 430 calories and fat content was 8 grams
– it was cheap (~ $3.00). This is a lot cheaper than the sandwiches in most delis and gourmet stores
– I actually ate it for lunch and it wasn’t bad. It would have been better with some veggies but overall it is an acceptable choice for a lunch on the run