I've had a very weird week this week, at the very last moment my partner and I decided to have a trip up north to Newcastle to see my family, so at the weekend I have to say I was very much off plan. It's helpful that my mum is also doing Slimming World up there, so in the evenings we were eating pretty syn free meals. However, it didn't help that it was my step-dad's birthday so he wanted to have a meal out. I tried my hardest to have something relatively syn free, but the menu was just so amazing to not have something bad! I ended up having a massive (and I mean MASSIVE) mixed grill, complete wit steak, chicken breast, gammon, sausage, chips, mushroom, tomato and a fried egg. It was so huge that I couldn't finish it, but I can imagine that the meat was fairly healthy so I left the chips and the egg.
This inspired me to write a post about some of the more healthy food from pubs, JD Wetherspoon being the prime example. I haven't been to a city where there hasn't been at least one Wetherpsoons available, and I can imagine that most people have eaten there. The menu is pretty diverse, from chicken to steak, to burritos and burgers. All of which sound amazing on the menu but are really hefty in the syns department!
So here's a low down on the basic syns from Wetherspoons, you might be surprised!
Low Syn Options:
Peri Peri Chicken and Pepper Skewers
These are my go-to food as the SW website confirmed that they are free. Have them with a salad, and the sauce comes in a little pot, so you can choose how much to have. The sauce is 1 1/2 syns per tbsp.
Skinny Steak
Add 1 or 2 syns for the oil, a totally free salad and a syn free jacket potato for a really delicious and filling meal.
Freedom Salad
As the name suggests, this salad is full of speed foods and a free balsamic dressing. Adding chicken or salmon adds 1 or 2 syns, but makes it really tasty!
Jacket Potato with Beans and Cheese
We all know jackets and beans are free, and the butter for the potato comes on the side so you can choose to have it. Save your healthy A for the cheese and you're all set!
Sweet Chilli Noodles
At just 1 syn for the whole dish, you can't go wrong! It's a little spicy for my taste, and adding chicken makes the dish quite high syn, but overall a good eat.
Mini Corn on the Cob
An awesome free food choice, as it doesn't come with butter!
Side Salad
With no dressing, completely syn free!
Five Bean Chilli
On a jacket potato or with rice, it's only 1 1/2 syns per serving. Beware that the chilli con carne is 7 1/2 syns, so make sure you order the beans!
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Beware of the really high syn foods that you may mistake for being healthy, burgers and sandwiches can vary from 20 syns to a shocking 42 syns! That's not even with chips or sides!
I hope this helps :)
Ciao!
x
hi, sorry if this sounds really stupid but you say the chicken skewers are free, but adding chicken to the noodles makes them high syn. i'm not sure i understand as all chicken is free isn't it? xx
ReplyDeletethere has been so much debate about the sweet chilli noodles! the most common thought is that when they add the chicken to the noodles, it's fried, but the chicken on the skewers is grilled. hope this helps! x
ReplyDeletethanks, i work in a wetherspoons and the chicken breast used to top off things such as salads and noodles and the skewers are both microwaved and then grilled so they get the griddle lines on. so i would assume that the chicken is free, maybe add 1-2 syns for any oil on the grill pan. xx
ReplyDeleteThe mini corn on cob is cooked in butter so would.not be free
ReplyDeleteI worked in spoons for 3 years xx
if you ask for it without butter it's free. confirmed from sw app. x
ReplyDeleteSorry but the sw app is wtong, I've worked with Spoons for 11 years and have a daughter with a dairy allergy, corn is definitely cooked in butter and there's no way of changing that on our side, it can be served without additional butter but that's it. And yeah, the chicken breasts are cooked on the grill so just a syn or two for oil x
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