After a hard week of work, whether we’re just too tired or maybe we’ve forgotten to do the food shop (again), a takeaway is always a treat; but which takeaway cuisine sneaks in those extra calories?

Intrigued with finding the most calorific cuisine, GolfSupport.com utilised the online analytics tool SEMrush to collate the top ten most popular cuisines worldwide; followed by the top three most popular dishes of those cuisines, respectively. The nutritional value from each dish was also collated to provide data.

The most calorific cuisines

The study can reveal that the top three most calorific cuisines are Italian, Mexican, and Japanese.

Italian cuisine has an average of 743 calories per dish, which is the highest average calorie content of all cuisines in this study. It also comes out on top with the highest average fat content with 43g. Although, it’s just shy of the top three cuisines for high sugar content, as Italian comes in fourth with an average of 12.6g.

Mexican is second, only 157 calories away from the top spot with 586 calories per dish. The average dish contains 27.6g of fat, and on the other end of the scale its sugar content is relatively low with 7.6g on average.

Taking third place is Japanese with an average of 576 calories, and perhaps a surprisingly high sugar content (13g). However, it has one of the lowest fat contents (16.6g).

The most calorific dishes

Pad Thai claims the title with 1004 calories. Its high fat content (45g) and sugar (24g) also help to secure it as the most calorific dish.

Nevertheless, tacos aren’t too far behind with 792 calories (44g of fat and 8g of sugar).

To round out the top three is Gelato. At 780 calories a serving, this sweet dish takes the top spot for fat content with a whopping 69g and 32g of sugar.

Low calorie cuisines

Indian cuisine is the lowest calorie cuisine with an average of just 357 calories per dish. This cuisine also has the lowest sugar content (7.3g), but nonetheless, the 18.6g of fat keeps it in the top five highest.

Closely followed by Spanish cuisine (364 calories, 14.6g fat and 9g sugar), and Greek (also 364 calories, 17.3g fat and 9.3g sugar).

Low calorie dishes

Tom Yum, a spicy and sour Thai soup, takes the crown for lowest calories (90), fat (1g) and sugar content (1g).

Closely followed by Gazpacho (126 calories), with just 1g of fat, but with a sugar content of 18g. 

Finally, the only sweet dish in the low-calorie cuisines, Baklava; Baklava is 224 calories per portion with a sweet 13g of sugar and 12g of fat.

Obesity projections

The World Health Organisation (WHO) doesn’t explicitly give a recommended daily allowance (RDA) for calories but using their previous statistics, World Population Review were able to create a projection of global obesity levels.

Of the listed cuisines, Mexican is the second most calorific, so it may come as no surprise that Mexico’s obesity level projection for 2021 was the highest at 28.9 per cent of the population.

Closely followed by Greece with 24.9 per cent, and Spain with 23.8 per cent of the population projected to be obese in 2021.

Whereas Japanese is one of the most calorific cuisines and yet the obesity levels for Japan are one of the lowest at 4.3 per cent. This adds reinforcement to the phrase ‘everything in moderation’.