When it comes to street food, few things can top gyros, one of the most famous dishes of Greek cuisine. However, street food isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when trying to find food high in nutrients. So, let’s break down the nutritional benefits and calories in gyro meat.
Gyros Origins and Ingredients
Gyros (sometimes also called gyro) is a tasty Greek dish that you can find in many places around the world. It is a meat-based dish cooked on a vertical rotisserie, most often made with pork, although chicken variants also exist.
Gyros originated in Greece as a variation of the doner kebab, and it was brought there by the exiled Greek population of the Ottoman Empire. The name “gyros” means “circle” or “turn.” It is a translation of the word “döner,” which has the same meaning in Turkish.
Outside of Greece, gyros is also often made from beef, lamb, or mixed meat. In the U.S., it tends to be made mainly with lamb meat. Most restaurants usually serve it in pita bread with tzatziki, onions, french fries, and sliced tomatoes.
However, there are also many regional variations. For example, in northern Greece, people use ketchup and mustard instead of tzatziki, while the Cypriots tend to omit tzatziki in favor of more vegetables.
Nutritional Contents of Gyros
Gyros is a meat dish, which means it is high in protein. In gyro meat, you can find plenty of valuable minerals and vitamins necessary for your body to work properly and stay healthy. On the other hand, it is also high in fat and cholesterol, which are generally detrimental to your body.
However, the high-fat percentage can be more suitable for those who are on a special diet, such as keto. In addition, gyro meat doesn’t have any carbohydrates, which is perfect for the keto diet and won’t make you feel bloated.
Calories in Gyro Meat
Now, let’s get into the nitty-gritty of calories. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a gyro dish tends to have around 3.5 ounces of lamb meat, which is about 217 calories and 0.9oz of protein.
However, a gyro sandwich isn’t always necessarily made with lamb; often, it is made with pork or chicken. In that case, the nutritional values will obviously differ.
The same amount of pork has around 136 calories and 0.8oz of protein. As you can see, pork has an overall lower nutritional value than lamb. Chicken, on the other hand, is number one when it comes to protein with 1oz per serving. However, it packs less energy than lamb but about the same as pork: 136 calories per serving,
Still, eating a gyros dish is not just about meat. If we factor in the pita bread (about 2.7oz) and french fries (about one cup), that’s another 367 calories. To put it another way, there aren’t that many calories in gyro meat itself. It’s actually everything else that goes into a gyro sandwich that raises the calorie count.
According to the University of Illinois Extension, the average gyro sandwich contains about 445 calories, 1.2 ounces of carbohydrates, and 1.5 ounces of protein. It also contains 100mg (0.003oz) of cholesterol and 0.5oz of fat. That means you should not eat gyros every day unless you’re burning all of that energy you consume.
On the other hand, gyros is a great meal for anyone that leads a more active lifestyle, especially if you’re on an alternative diet like keto. Gyro meat can be a healthy and delicious addition to a keto diet due to its good fat and protein content.
Unfortunately, if you are strictly observing the rules of keto, you will have to ditch the pita bread and french fries.
