New costa meal deal is irresponsible

[Habanero]

Costa have just launched a lunchtime meal deal with a toastie, crisps and a coffee. The one pictured on the ad with a cheese and ham toastie and a latte contains 754 calories, 34g fat, 15.4g saturated fat and 2.1g salt. You can cut off a bit of the calories and fat by opting for lower-fat milk, but it’s still a third of an adult’s daily calories with no source of fibre and no fruit or veg. This sort of thing normalises overeating: by making this a “meal deal” the company is presenting this as a normal lunch option, psychologically nudging people towards consuming an energy-rich, nutritionally poor midday meal.

Clearly it’s a first world problem and we all have choices and don’t need to buy this, but it’s the normalisation of overeating like this which I think has done more than anything to raise obesity levels. AIBU?

This meal deal is just one small example: there are so many more, and so few examples of affordable, available low calorie food with high veg content in town and city centres.

This example, the toastie alone, is more than double the calories of a home made sandwich, although agree that many sandwiches bought from other outlets can be calorific too.

Some of Upper Crust’s might well be nigh 800+ calories, but can’t check that because nutrition info isn’t easily available.

The meal deal options allow you to swap fruit for crisps and another drink for a latter - so toastie, apple and americano if you want it.

Costa give dietary information on all their food, you can swap within the meal deal to cut the fat/calories/sugar as desired.

What is the problem?

I do find it alarming that so many sedentary people think that 2000-2500 is healthy for them.

I'd have liked to see you taking that tack with me when I was averaging 2500kcal/day and was a healthy BMI at 5'6"with perfectly fine blood sugar level, cholesterol etc.for over 15 years. In those days, I simply had a fast metabolism.

Who died and made you the food police? 🙄

This example, the toastie alone, is more than double the calories of a home made sandwich

How? Are you sure?

Surely if it's two pieces of bread with some ham and cheese in it, it'll be about the same wherever it was made?

I got a 'blueberry' muffin for breakfast and was buzzing, sooo much sugar.

You do know that sugar can't make you high?
What else was in it I wonder?!

Lots of people have died due to being overweight / poor nutrition. There is no “food police” and government action to date has been minimal (eg long delayed child obesity strategy with few interventions).

Yes, costa at least makes calorie info available at the point of sale and online, which is more than most other outlets.

There are numerous calorie counted examples of different cheese and ham sandwiches on tools such as MyFitnessPal Barbara, and calories can vary greatly eg quantities and type of cheese, ham and spread used, thickness of the bread, cooking methods. There can be huge differences.

1/3 of normal adult caloric intake x 3 meals a day = non-issue.

What's your problem OP?

If it's lunch and not a snack then it's ok still a lot for a sandwich and a coffee though.
I take the OP's point though re meal deals.
I went to an Asda cafe yesterday and was bombarded with meal deals for everything I bought. I only wanted a sandwich. "Do you want crisps only 20 p more" "do you want chips only 50 p more etc" no I just want a bloody sandwich!

@WorldofTofuness if you had a 'fast' metabolism, then clearly I'm talking about the many people with average and slow metabolisms who can't handle anywhere near that much :)

Also I did say "sedentary" - e.g. the many people I've met who walk 10 mins to the tube station twice a day and no other exercise. I used to work with a lady who was convinced that her 30 minute lunchtime walk burned 600 calories. I just mean generally I don't think people have much of a handle on how many calories their body actually needs to run. Not you personally!

If OP is in frothing mood, how about taking a look at the Co-op dinner deals? These routinely suggest 250g as a sensible dose of veg for 2 people--that is, barely 1.5 portions per person. Pretty crap given that most people's main consumption of veg is at dinner; and it's worse because this is pretending to be a balanced, everyday meal, which Costa is not.

Or how about the increasing tendency of restaurant meals to consist of meat + carb (or sometimes, just meat), and you have to buy the veg separately as a "side"? Meaning that for a "meal" to be remotely complete, it costs ~£4 more than the headline price, before you've even got to service charge etc..

I can't get worked up about this. I'm more bothered that the only milk alternatives they give are soya (which I can't have either) or coconut. But they blend the coconut milk with soya! Why?!

Adults can be responsible for their own calorie count. It's not up to the stores to do it for them.

@althea they do almond milk and oat milk at some of them now

I only wanted a sandwich.

So presumably you only bought a sandwich?

Most of the lunch time meal deals I see offer fruit/veg/cake/crisps to go with a sandwich and a range of drinks.

Its perfectly possible to buy sandwich/fruit/water in those deals. I can't remember the last time I saw a prepacked sandwich or packet of crisps without calorie info (either on the pack or on the shelf label if made on prem).

I generally only want a sandwich, so I only buy a sandwich. I'm still not seeing the problem.

Habanero you said children are going to die earlier than their parents, and experience more ill health in their lives as a result

Which is totally at odds with people living much longer now than they did 50+ years ago (the death bit anyway).

It is harder to buy affordable low calorie food That's not entirely true. Sainsbury in Holborn was selling veg and salads when I was last there. People don't know perhaps how to cook from scratch, or don't batch cook. My ready meals are ones that I've cooked and frozen, so I control what's in them.

When I was teaching, I'd make a salad in the morning before I left, or before I went to bed, and stick it in my bag in the morning. Not hard really.

Not everyone loses weight by counting calories. Full fat foods are richer and more satisfying so you tend to eat less of them and also snack less. Hence high fat low carb diets

Everyone loses weight by reducing calories. You can do that by eating less of high fat foods of course but that still means less calories overall.
Lattes are not an essential part of any diet though and certainly can't be said to contribute to weight loss as suggested!

My kids drink water or milk only, probably because that's all I ever offered them. This is a divisive topic on MN, a lot of people think it's cruel and unrealistic to not serve squash.

Yes, I did that. Ds2 mostly chose milk. Even if we went out to a restaurant. Go me, I thought as he gets another fist bump from the dentist. Except - here comes the shine off my smug victory - his iron levels were found to be shit during an unrelated blood test. So now he's on ferrous fumarate and orange juice.

The amount of milk he was drinking had inhibited his iron absorption. I guess the post above makes no sense without that added detail, I suppose.

It is harder to buy affordable low calorie food “That's not entirely true. Sainsbury in Holborn was selling veg and salads when I was last there.” In the “eat now” sections of Sainsburys, and any other store, there is far, far more high calorie food available than low calorie. In most mainline stations there are far, far more food outlets selling “800 calorie plus” foods (but not labelled) than lower calorie options with veg.

It is very hard, in practice for some people to cook, scaryteacher. Time, skills, parenting, access to affordable supermarkets and a freezer.

YABVVVU. Adults are responsible for their own choices. You can’t blame anyone else, or any business, if you have no self control.

Bets loads of ppl going to costa at lunch would have skipped breakfast

PretABoire But the only indication of whether someone is eating too much is whether they're fat: they can be eating too much at 1800kcal or too little at 2700. This strikes a bit of a raw nerve with me because people would see me eating, we'd get into a discussion on my estimated intake, and I'd be solemnly told, "You're eating too much, because according to guidelines XYZ 2000kcal yada yada..." -- as if I must be storing excess energy in the Cloud. People actually seemed a bit perturbed, especially as I wasn't really very active when I was last a healthy BMI (cycled 4 miles a day in short hops, maybe walking 2 miles a couple of times a week).

(I'm on the other side of the fence now, though. Either BF has done something odd to my metabolism or something more serious is going on, as I put on weight after having DD that going back to my previous regime didn't reverse. I am now hovering on 'acceptable' BMI at around 1800kcal,albeit with body fat that has migrated to my middlewith dodgy bloods, not helped by feeling chronically knackered. I've only been able to get to this point by scrupulously keeping a food diary (and mostly eliminating junk food + much else). My main issue with catering outlets isn't the food being calorificthis can be made up for by altering what you eat throughout the week, as PPs have saidbut that it's really difficult to work out how calorific unless you eat at chains. It's pretty disheartening when you're logging things meticulously down to 100kJ, only for a mysterious burger-shape zone of massive uncertainty to appear...

IME it is really difficult to find low calorie food in central London.

Really? Pret is great for this. You can get a protein pot of an egg w spinach, or the hommous/beetroot thingy, coconut, popcorn, edemame - easy peasy.

Or a cappuccino, which I consider food because it works beautifully when I'm hungry. With sugar-free caramel syrup. I know aspartame is very unfashionable but it works just fine for me.