These are the surprisingly unhealthy high street breakfasts from Pret a Manger, Costa Coffee, Starbucks and Eat
If you didn't have time to eat breakfast at home this morning, chances are you nipped into a Pret a Manger or Starbucks in the way to work for a last-minute snack.
But the illusion that high street coffee and food outlets are healthy has been knocked upside the head by new research from health website Treated.com and GP Dr Wayne Osborne.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, affordable pub favourite JD Wetherspoon topped the list of 11 venues surveyed as having the most calorific breakfast, with its large breakfast boasting a quite eye-watering 1,531 calories (75 per cent of a woman's daily intake and around 60 per cent of a man's, if you're wondering).
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But the most calorific items at Costa Coffee, Pret a Manger, Starbucks, Eat and Caffe Nero were each over a fifth of a woman's and almost a sixth of a man's daily intake.
| Chain and Breakfast | Kcal count |
| JD Wetherspoon – Large breakfast | 1,531 |
| Harvester – The ultimate breakfast bap | 1,307 |
| Wimpy – All day breakfast | 900 |
| McDonald's – Pancakes and sausage with syrup | 664 |
| Greggs – Bacon and sausage baguette | 617 |
| Burger King – Sausage croissan'wich | 600 |
| Costa Coffee – All day breakfast bloomer toastie | 564 |
| Pret a Manger – Sausage and egg brioche | 546 |
| Starbucks – Almond croissant | 503 |
| Caffe Nero – All day breakfast panini | 480 |
| Eat – Bacon, egg, avocado and chipotle ketchup roll | 444 |
(Note: Burger King's 810 kcal breakfast platter included as it is not available at all venues)
The researchers considered all items appearing on breakfast menus where one was available, muffins and croissants from all chains as breakfast items and, if no specified morning menu was available, any items with the word breakfast in the title were considered.
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Dr Osborne said:
The most calorific breakfast options on offer at what we might perceive as "higher end" outlets such as Costa and Pret a Manger are closer in calorie value than many might suspect to those available at McDonald’s and Burger King.
In fact there’s less than 120 calories between 4th placed McDonald’s item and 8th placed Pret a Manger’s item, with Greggs, Burger King and Costa in between.
When it came to a salt comparison between high street venues, Pret's bacon and egg brioche had 4.3g of salt, the fifth highest behind Wetherspoon's Harvester, Wimpy and Gregg's.
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In terms of sugar content, Starbucks' lemon and poppyseed muffin – with 42.8g of total sugars – came in fifth place and was just ahead of Costa Coffee's triple chocolate muffin (40.9g) and Pret's double berry muffin (39.9g).