FORGET healthy eating this Christmas. The latest must-have lunch gracing Britain’s dining tables on December 25 will be a hearty concoction of three birds roasted one inside the other, eaten as a reaction to the bland taste of industrially produced turkey.

The “gooducken” — a goose stuffed with a chicken stuffed with a duck — is also a general term used to refer to other forms of “three-bird roast”, such as turkey stuffed with duck and pheasant.

Suppliers of gooduckens say orders this Christmas are more than double those of last year, buoyed by the support of celebrities such as the actress Emma Thompson. Television chefs who have backed the dish include Antony Worrall Thompson, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Rick Stein.

Gooducken supporters see themselves as part of the trend towards organic “real” food.

The growing popularity of the gooducken, which can cost as much as £185 for the largest versions compared with £15 for a large turkey, shows many Britons continue to see Christmas as an excuse for shameless gluttony, despite the government’s efforts in a white paper last week to promote healthy eating and combat obesity.

A new report predicts that spending on Christmas dinners will increase by 23% in real terms over the next five years.

The study, by the market research company Mintel, claims consumers are increasingly turning towards indulgent products to reward themselves for hard work during the year.

Last Christmas £51m was spent on mince pies, a rise of nearly 5% on 2001, and £39m on Christmas puddings, an 8% increase. There have also been rises in spending on organic turkeys, geese and other free-range meat and poultry.

A spokeswoman for Tesco said: “The majority of our customers like to forget about healthy eating and diets and treat themselves over the Christmas period. We are increasingly seeing people choosing alternatives (to turkey) such as goose and duck.”

As a symbol of Christmas indulgence, the gooducken, however, has few rivals. Claire Symington, who runs Seldom Seen farm in Billesdon, Leicestershire — one of the largest providers of gooduckens in Britain — said she would be making 2,000 three-bird roasts this year, more than double last year’s output.

“People’s tastes have become much more adventurous, especially at Christmas,” said Symington. “How it’s produced, where it’s produced and whether it is free range have become much more important.”

Gooduckens are not susceptible to mass production — each one takes about 45 minutes to bone and assemble by hand. Symington said a 9oz portion of the three-bird roast contained about 500 calories; a McDonald’s Big Mac burger, by comparison, has 493 calories.

Symington’s speciality, which feeds up to 20 people and weighs 11lb, consists of a boned goose stuffed with a boned chicken, then a boned pheasant. The gaps between the birds are filled with pork sausage meat. Each bird contains 10,000 calories, 3,000 more than a similar-sized turkey, and takes four hours to cook.

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