114% of daily fat and 1,618 calories – you'll have had your Glasgow tea, then

NOUVELLE it isnae. A top hotel is using Scotland's reputation as a nutritional no-go area to offer artery-busting, tooth-dissolving "Glasgow afternoon teas".

The 1,600-calorie feast includes 'jeely pieces', Irn-Bru trifle, Tunnock's Teacakes, Caramel Wafers, scones and pancakes, all washed down with strong tea and Scotland's bright orange national drink.

The £8.95 treat is the brainchild of staff at the four-star, £174-a-night Hilton Grosvenor Hotel who wanted to bring together some of the city's most-loved delicacies.

The idea has proved a big hit with customers, and around 40 Glasgow afternoon teas are being served up every weekend.

But the move has proved controversial and was last night branded "appalling" by Alex Salmond's personal nutritionist, Wendy Barrie, after it was revealed that a single sitting contained more than double the daily recommended levels of sugar and saturated fat.

Another top nutritionist, Carina Norris, estimated that even a fairly modest diner would be likely to devour a whopping 237% of their daily recommended sugar level and 209% of their daily total of saturated fat.

And she said that an average Glaswegian tea will carry around 1,618 calories.

Norris, an adviser for the Channel 4 series Turn Back Your Body Clock, has also calculated that it would represent 114% of the recommended safe daily levels of fat, 81% of total calories and 55% of salt levels.

The Fife-based healthy living expert said: "Nutritionally speaking this is a jaw-droppingly horrendous tea.

"Diets high in fats, especially saturated fat, and sugar can increase your risk of obesity and a whole range of serious diseases such as type two diabetes, heart disease, stroke and certain cancers.

"The hotel is clearly trying to be tongue-in-cheek with this menu and is poking fun at what is seen as the stereotypical bad Glasgow diet – and it is certainly that."

"People aren't going to treat themselves to tea at a hotel every day and eating this once won't hurt you.

"But if this is the kind of food you eat on a regular basis than it is a very different matter.

"People enjoy this kind of food but they don't like to think about the possible health consequences."

Barrie, who recently compiled a menu of Scottish produce for the First Minister, felt the meal would perpetuate the image of Scots as hopelessly addicted to junk food.

The director of food studies at St George's School for Girls in Edinburgh said: "Scotland has already gained a dreadful reputation because of the notoriety of the deep-fried Mars bar and this just adds to it.

"I can only hope that this menu is meant to be funny, but our health as a nation is no laughing matter.

"We have so much fantastic nutritious produce here in Scotland, and it is deeply depressing that people continue to be relentlessly bombarded with fat and sugar.

"Glasgow already has an appalling record for bad eating and this sends out such an unhealthy and counter-productive message."

She added: "It is very sad that the only fruit on the menu is inside a chocolate-sprinkled Irn-Bru trifle.

"In Scotland, smoking and binge-drinking are now, quite rightly, frowned upon but it still seems perfectly acceptable to encourage people to fill themselves with sugar and fat. It is very dangerous."

But Councillor John Mason, the SNP leader of the opposition at Glasgow City Council, was more measured in his response.

"Everyone enjoys something sweet now and again, but we do need to be sending out the right sort of messages as a city," he said.

And Stuart Nelson, general manager of the Hilton Grosvenor Hotel, insisted the criticism was little more than a storm in a china tea cup.

He said: "Some people need to lighten up a bit. This is nothing more than good old-fashioned comfort food. It is the exactly the kind of food that generations of Glaswegians enjoyed when they were round at their aunty or granny's house.

"People enjoy the Glasgow afternoon teas as a well-earned occasional treat.

"They wouldn't eat this type of thing every day and it goes without saying that we wouldn't encourage them to."

Head chef Adam McKissock said: "We are delighted by just how popular the teas have become. The feedback has been really good."

Fergus Loudon, Scottish sales manager with Tunnock's, was flattered that his firm's products were being touted as a Glaswegian delicacy.

He said: "It is great to hear that the chef at the Hilton is promoting all things Scottish. We are proud that our biscuits have acquired the status of being genuine Scottish icons."

A traditional afternoon tea features daintily cut cucumber sandwiches, scones with Devon clotted cream and Earl Grey tea sipped from bone china cups.

Perhaps the most expensive afternoon tea in the UK is served at the Ritz in London. For £37 a head, diners – who must be formally dressed – can enjoy smoked salmon sandwiches, raisin and apple scones with organic preserve, fruits of the forest compote and a selection of 17 teas including Lapsang Souchong, Moroccan Mint, Ritz Royal English and Assam Leaf and Jasmine with flowers.

Bookings for the meal, which is served in the hotel's spectacular Palm Court, must be made at least four weeks in advance.

Scotland's most famous location for afternoon tea is arguably the Willow Tea Rooms in Glasgow, which were lavishly designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

'My head started to buzz with the Clyde-built battleship of all sugar rushes'

THE delicate china cups and silver-tiered tray looked elegant enough to pass muster with Miss Marple, Barbara Cartland or Annabel Goldie.

But the layer-upon-layer of sugar-coated goodies that were heaped around them looked like they been put together by Billy Bunter's long-lost cousin from Cowcaddens.

After I wolfed down three jeely pieces and moved on to the Tunnock's Teacakes and Caramel Wafers my head started to buzz with the Clyde-built battleship of all sugar rushes.

I hadn't eaten as much sweet food since my sixth birthday party and felt a strange and sudden urge to play musical statues to 'This Ole House' by Shakin' Stevens, but the pressure on my waistband would doubtless have ensured that I'd be the first to get eliminated anyway.

The undoubted highlight of the gargantuan Glaswegian calorie-fest was chef Adam McKissock's tarte au girders – or Irn-Bru trifle. It's more tooth-rottingly sweet than a duet between Bonnie Langford and Donny Osmond, but it is fiendishly tasty.

The legendary Glasgow glutton Rab Ha is reputed to have wolfed down an entire calf when he got a fit of the munchies, but even he would have struggled to eat every morsel of this belt-busting meal. If this catches on, dentists from Anniesland to Yoker will be rubbing their hands with glee.