These high street Christmas treats really AREN’T that bad for you!

A deep-fried croissant doughnut covered with icing. A foot-long pig in a blanket sarnie. Now the truly shocking news...

IT’S the most wonderful time of the year. In that time-honoured tradition, high-street food chains have just launched their festive menus. And, of course, The Mail on Sunday was first in the queue to try them – and put them under our nutritional microscope.

There’s Pret’s snack pots of pigs in blankets, and Subway’s slightly scarylooking bacon-wrapped-sausage sub. Starbucks has a Truffle Deluxe Hot Chocolate, while McDonald’s offers a Double Big Mac made up of four beef patties (quite what that has to do with Christmas, I’m not sure, but it comes in a festive-looking box).

The trend appears to be: to hell with healthy eating.

And, as ever, the health-food Stasi will be up in arms, claiming there are ‘hidden’ dangers in succumbing to these treats.

But indulgent and calorific as they may seem, is it really that

bad for us to eat the odd deep-fried croissantdoughnut (thanks, M&S) when we’re trying to get into the festive spirit? The answer is, surprisingly, probably not.

It’s true that when, over the long term, we consume more than the recommended daily calorie limit (roughly 2,000 for women and 2,500 for men), and don’t exercise, the excess energy ends up being stored as fat. But eating even 500 calories on top of that daily allowance every day for a week – the equivalent of, say, a Christmas roast lunch sandwich – is not enough to show up on the scales. You’d gain roughly a pound of body fat, according to dietician Alexia Dempsey. ‘But,’ she adds, ‘we fluctuate by a pound or two daily, simply by emptying our bowels, so it won’t make much difference.’

Even with no activity, the body quickly adapts to a short period of excess consumption, preventing our weight from surging.

Dr Giles Yeo, an expert in obesity and genetics from Cambridge University, explains: ‘When there’s a sudden, significant increase in body fat, the brain triggers the release of chemicals that control hunger and fullness signals, as well as hormones to speed up the amount of energy we burn in the following days.’

Essentially, if we eat enough during a short period to begin putting on weight, the body starts to stop us from wanting to eat more.

Dr Yeo adds: ‘Anyone who has ever had a big blowout at Christmas will recognise the cravings for lighter meals that set in by the time January hits. This is due to both psychological and biological mechanisms which help us lose any post-Christmas weight by February without really trying.’

AND studies confirm this: most healthy people who eat excessive calories over a few days will naturally eat below the daily limit the following week. As for the 6,000 calories we’re predicted to consume on Christmas Day alone, Duane Mellor, a senior nutrition lecturer at Aston University, says: ‘Short-term, a lot of extra food will just stay in your digestive tract. A few days will cause very minimal weight gain – if any at all.’

Research shows that meals heavy in nuts are only partially digested, with the rest ending up in the toilet, while up to a fifth of the calories in meat-heavy dishes are used during the process of digestion.

Hurrah! Christmas-tree-shaped brownies are on me!

There are, of course, those who will say no thanks to these treats, calling them junk. It’s undeniable that many of them contain a large volume of sugar, fat, salt and, ultimately, calories. And yes, diets heavy in junk food are linked to illness and an early death. But Christmas comes but once a year, and you won’t balloon after indulging over a week or two.

In fact, it takes years to get really overweight. A 2011 study involving 100,000 adults found that obesity typically occurred over two decades, with participants consistently gaining roughly three pounds per year. And the researchers blamed a host of surprising factors, including sleep deprivation, a lack of fruit and veg and an over-reliance on unfilling sugary drinks for energy.

One serious risk of excess fat is that it can accumulate in the liver, increasing the chances of developing type 2 diabetes and liver disease. ‘But you’d have to over-indulge in fatty foods most days for weeks to see this risk,’ says Dr Yeo. ‘At Christmas, people might do this for a couple of days each week, not every day.

‘It’s what you’re eating regularly the other 50 weeks of the year that is most important for a healthy body weight. And enjoying ourselves in times of celebration is equally important – both for physical and mental health.’

With this in mind, we examined a few of the festive foods that have popped up on the high street to see just what the damage is – and put them to the taste test.

The biggest shock? Many are far healthier than you might expect…