The Christmas edition of The Lancet (Vol 364:9452, December 18-31 2004) carried an article by David S Morrison and Mark Petticrew entitled "Deep and crisp and eaten: Scotland's deep-fried Mars bar". In 1995 the Scottish Daily Record cited the deep-fried Mars bar as typifying Scotland's diet. Morrison and Petticrew conducted a telephone survey in June 2004 of a random selection of the 627 fish and chip shops in Scotland. Of 488 telephoned, 303 (62%) responded. 66 (22%) shops sold deep-fried Mars bars, though an additional 51 (17%) had in the past. Mean weekly sales were 23 bars but ten shops sold much higher numbers, from 50-200 a week. They were mainly sold to children and young people. Cooks reported that they made a mess of the frying equipment. Shops had also deep-fried Cream eggs, Snickers bars and the authors report evidence of the penetration of the Mediterranean diet in that it is now possible to find deep-fried pizza.
