When Hampshire Scientific Service tested 150 dishes from five favourite takeaway types – Chinese, Indian, pizza, kebab and fish and chips – many contained more than an entire day's allowance of salt and fat in just one meal.
But do the implications for our health mean we have to wave goodbye to our favourite chicken tikka or crispy duck?
Dieticians and senior figures within the takeaway industry say we don't.
They believe takeaway food can taste just as good – if not better – if cooked more healthily.
The problem is getting that message across to owners of takeaway businesses, who fear they will lose trade or increase costs by switching ingredients.
Across Portsmouth, Gosport, Fareham and Havant, 44,000 takeaways are eaten every day.
Denise Thomas, head of nutrition and dietetics for Portsmouth Hospitals NHS Trust, says we'll be in trouble if things don't change fast.
She says: 'I believe that local councils who sanction takeaways should be vetting what's allowed to happen.
'Sixty per cent of Portsmouth's population is obese or overweight and meals like this are contributing.
'That quantity of fat is easy to reduce. If you go to the supermarket and pick up a ready-prepared doner kebab it would have a third of the fat content so it's possible to do it.'
She adds: 'They do it because it's cheap. You take a 400g product and a quarter of it's fat, which is dirt cheap. If you replace that with meat it's more expensive.'
Mo Delamie, a director at KBS, one of the UK's biggest kebab manufacturers, reckons the doner gets a raw deal.
He says: 'Our kebab content is 80 per cent meat, 12 per cent fat and the rest is spices. But other people's kebabs can be 50 per cent fat.
'The law insists on manufacturers putting ingredient details on their labels and we spend thousands of pounds doing that.
'But those labels aren't seen by the customer because the law doesn't insist on shops putting signs up, showing customers what's in their food.That needs to change.''
Ken Ali, manager of Ken's Kebabs in Albert Road, says he makes an effort to combat the amount of salt and fat in his food. He says his takeaway menu enables customers to pick from a variety of foods.
'The chicken kebabs are very healthy – there is no fat in them at all.'
According to Thomas Chan, chairman of the Chinese Takeaway Association, hundreds of takeaway chefs agree.
Five years ago, funded by the British Health Association, he started up the Healthy Chinese Takeaway Menus Project. He travels to different cities and invites takeaway chefs to take part in some training.
They cook their usual dishes from their menus while Mr Chan cooks a healthier version. Then they compare.
He says: 'There's an uncertainty at first and the chefs always want to put colouring on their spare ribs to make them red. The healthy option always comes out best and they eat it all.
'You hold up the chopstick with the other version and no way will they touch it. They know it's going to be dry and the colouring makes it less tasty. So, we say why serve to others what you wouldn't eat yourself?'
He adds: 'It doesn't cost more and I show people there's no need for oil when cooking prawns – I don't use a single drop. You don't need to buy extra salt and colourings.'
But the project found takeaway owners feared their business wwould take a dive if they stopped serving fatty, salty food.