Revealed: The unhealthiest sandwiches on the high street that are packed with more calories than TWO McDonald’s Cheeseburgers

Sandwiches sold on the British high street and in supermarket meal deals can be more calorific than burgers and sweeter than chocolate bars, analysis reveals.

MailOnline found a host of the nation’s lunchtime favourites had more calories, saturated fat, sugar and salt than fast food and desserts.

Pret’s Posh Cheddar & Pickle Baguette sandwich contained 643 calories, more than two McDonald’s cheeseburgers (295 calories each) or a Big Mac (494 calories).

Many sandwiches offered by British supermarkets also had fast food burgers beat when it came to saturated fat content. 

Waitrose’s No.1 The Perfect Ploughman’s Cornish Cheddar Sandwich was one of those with the most saturated fat content at 13.1g per pack.

This is more fat than two McDonald’s Cheeseburgers, which have 5.4g of saturated fat a piece. 

M&S’s Farmhouse Cheddar Cheese Ploughman’s was another high fat offering, and with 11.3g of saturated fat, had more than a Big Mac (8.8g). 

Both sandwiches contained over half the NHS’s daily statured fat limits for women (20g) and nearly half that for men (30g) in just a single pack.

Sainsbury’s Brie Bacon & Chili Chutney Sandwich topped the charts when it came to sugar content with 19.7g of the sweet stuff.

This is almost the equivalent of having two Kit Kat chocolate bars (10.3g each).

Another surprisingly sugary offering was M&S’s All Day Breakfast Sandwich.

This sandwich contained 10.1g of sugar, only slightly less than a Krispy Kreme Original Glazed Donut (12g). 

For context, the NHS recommends adults only consume a maximum of 30g of sugar per day. 

Multiple British sandwiches for sale on the high street were also found to be far saltier than fast food items.

Pret’s Ham & Grevé Baguette contained 3.85g of salt, making it saltier than four large portions of McDonald’s fries (0.82g of salt each).

But even some vegetarian options were surprisingly high in salt.

M&S’s Farmhouse Cheddar Cheese Ploughman contained 1.78g, slightly more than two large McDonald’s fries. 

Adults are recommended to only have no more than 6g of salt per day, and children are advised to have even less. 

Having excess salt in your system leads to water retention in the blood raising your blood pressure.  

This can, subsequently, raise the risk of a potentially fatal heart attack or stroke.

Heart disease and strokes are one of Britain’s biggest killers, killing about 160,000 a year, with the American death toll about five times higher.

The NHS also warns that too much fat in your diet, especially saturated fats, can raise your cholesterol, which in turn increases the risk of heart disease.

Eating too much sugar, which is packed with energy, can contribute to potentially harmful weight gain increasing the risk of serious issues like heart disease, some cancers as well as type 2 diabetes.