Boots

Skin cream… deodorant… cough medicine… AND THE BEST SANDWICH DEAL ON THE HIGH STREET!!!
Yup, that’s right, I hereby award innocuous chain chemist Boots as trumper of all high street sandwich shops for the best sandwich deal — comprising sarnie, drink and snack — on the grounds of health, value, and choice.
Let’s start with the sandwich itself. Well, I say sandwich, but in fact you can have a salad or pasta salad instead. But sticking with the sandwiches, what I like so much about the Boots sandwiches is that it’s clear that a lot of thought has gone into making them as healthy as possible, or as least unhealthy as possible. I’m talking here of saturated fat, sugar and above all salt content. Forgive the nutritional nerd in me when I say that your average sarnie has 2 grams of salt in it, i.e. a third of the maximum recommended intake of salt per day. Quite a few sarnies from other vendors — you know, the ones with red banners claiming ‘all natural’ ingredients and implying their food is ‘ready to eat’, or those trumpeting their adherence to a ‘Plan A’ — have more salt than that. Not so Boots, where it’s possible to find sarnies with less than a gram of salt in them. Very impressive. It’s the same story on saturated fats and sugar, which are also a good idea to limit. Sure, one could make the criticism that Boots’ sandwiches are relatively limited in range, but when they’re as healthy as they are, I’m happy to work with that.
Next, the drink, which can be selected from a wide range of water, juices and milkshakes. Most significant is these include 250 ml bottles of Innocent smoothies — yum yum yum.
Last, the snack, which can be picked from a whole aisle of sweet and savoury items: yogurts, chocolate, fruit, fruit/​snack bars, nuts and raisins…
And finally, value. The price charged for a decent, healthy sandwich, a £2 Innocent smoothie and your choice of snack? A scarcely believable £3.79! Just… incredible, particularly when you consider you’d be charged almost double that at one of the more recognisable sandwich chains.
Need lunch but don’t want to break the bank or eat unhealthily? Head to Boots!