Enjoying Fast Food and Eating Healthier at the Same Time?

You can enjoy fast food and eat healthier too. Ok, for years fast food and healthy eating did not appear on the same menu. However, this has all changed. Due to the demand of people becoming weight and heart smart, these fast food chains recognized a loss of revenue due to not having the more nutritional and lower fat foods.

With this in mind, there are now several fast food chains that offer awesome low fat and low calorie healthier foods at low prices. This does not mean that they are going to change their menus away from their core market, the 18-25 year old males. However, it does mean that those of us that are a little more health-conscious can get a quick meal that is good for us also.

These fast food items are on different parts of the menu. This can be on the restaurant’s dollar menu, salad menu, or even burgers menu. Okay, even that veggie burger is still a burger. So how does a person go about choosing to eat healthier at a fast food restaurant? It is all in the choices. Here are some examples.

Start by checking out some of the web sites of the fast food restaurants you would normally go to. They are easy to find, just go to a search engine like Google, and put in the name of the fast food restaurant. Here are a couple examples.

Taco Bell
McDonalds
Kentucky Fried Chicken

This will usually give you the caloric intake, the fat, and the different choices that are available. Knowing this information will empower you to make healthier choices when you go to fast food restaurants.

When you go into the restaurant many times you will see the low calorie and low fat items listed and easily viewable. However you may need to look a little. There is a good chance you can find a good salad, yogurt parfait, or veggie burger or sandwich with fresh fixings.

There are a few other items you can stick with that will also help to decrease the fat and calorie intake, thus eating healthier at a fast food restaurant.

• Start by skipping the extras. Those extras on a burger can increase the fat a great deal. This is the cheese, bacon, and high fat sauces. Instead, use lettuce, tomatoes, and onion to season the hamburger.

• This is the same thing with fry sauce. Fries are bad enough; if you add fry sauce, you have a full meal’s worth of calories in fries alone.

• Instead of super sizing, keep it regular. There is no need for that much soda and fries. If it says ‘double’, ‘ultimate’, or ‘big mamma’, try to stay away from it. The actual food portion a person should be eating to stay healthy is not a jumbo size.

• Get water or low fat milk instead of soda. There are calories and sodium in that soda.

• Get fruit instead of fries. These are options that are available in many kid’s meals. Make your meal the same; ask for fruit or salad to complete your meal.

• The fast food restaurants are now offering nutritional fact sheets for all their food. Ask for one; it will show you what you are eating.

• Go grilled or broiled. Fried is bad and bad for you. You can get grilled chicken on most any meal nowadays. You may even find turkey as an option.

• Salads are all over in these fast food restaurants. Try choosing a salad with lots of dark green lettuces. This is better for you, and tastes great.

With this information it should be easier to enjoy fast food, but eat healthier at the same time. Indulging in a burger once in awhile will not hurt, however if this is a twice a week habit, it can be deadly.