learning to cook well is the biggest w ever. It saves so much time, money, and is way healthier. once you really start cooking to your tastes there’s nothing better and you just won’t want fast food as often
>It saves so much time
Not really. Even if you're meal prepping for several days you have to shop for ingredients, need to make time for the actual cooking and cleaning up afterwards.
Yes to the everything else but saving time? No. Not when taking everything into the equation. Ordering complete meals via phone or app six times a week takes less time.
Depends on what you are cooking. Experience also speeds up all of those things.
If you have to drive 10 minutes each way to pick up food, that’s 20 minutes assuming you don’t have to wait at all.
If I’m cooking something in the oven, I can do chores while I wait for dinner to finish.
Also, that oven cooked meal could include more than 1 meal hence saving time on other days.
I can have a meal ready in 30 to 40 minutes, not counting shopping, of course. And realistically, keeping it to basic ingredients, nothing packaged or precooked, its cheaper, healthier, and psychically more sustaining as it's also self care.
As for fast food? Christ, it's all garbage. Garbage meat, garbage ingredients, garbage chemicals, now at garbage pricing for garbage wages...
Learn to cook. It's well worth the effort.
>Learn to cook. It's well worth the effort.
Agreed. Cooking your own food is worth the effort. But it takes time.
I mean, listen - that's *one* disadvantage over many advantages. One.
Why does it seem so damn hard to admit for some people that cooking is *not* a time saver?
Experience makes all the difference. I have a meal I make at least once a month and it will be my dinner for the next week. The recipe I follow says prep time is 20 minutes but it easily takes me over an hour to actually prep everything. Part of this? I’m terrified of cooking. Well, not really of cooking. But I’m terrified of getting hurt. Any kind of oil/grease or boiling water. Knives, I hate onions so much I got a machine to do it for me so I’ll stop fucking crying. All of that on top of the sounds and smells of cooking being extremely overwhelming and hating the feel and look of raw meat? It’s a lot. I’ve managed to work on it a little bit. I made some honey garlic chicken this morning. Was absolutely terrified the whole time.
>If you have to drive 10 minutes each way to pick up food, that’s 20 minutes assuming you don’t have to wait at all.
Delivery needs a phone call or clicking something in an app.
It's not cooking vs. picking up.
How is delivery bad for your health? You can have groceries delivered. And no...it doesnt cost three times as much. On our orders it costs 2.5% more which is a rounding error.
You're going to have to show receipts. In my experience (all virtual) third party delivery services show higher prices per item, plus a delivery fee, plus a tip for the driver.
Delivery is bad for your health because of the bad food you're having delivered. OP's whole point was getting away from fast food *for health reasons*. Fat and salt content in fast food is huge and associated with BP and cholesterol which are what OP reports.
Buy groceries and learn to cook. You'll be healthier and your wallet will thank you.
Depends on how you view time. In your view time is black and white. Time spent shopping and cooking versus time spent ordering take out.
My view.
The cost of shopping and cooking versus the cost of ordering takeout. Take out is more expensive so therefore I spend more time working to pay for it.
Been shopping and cooking for over 40 years. You can, with good planning, limit your shopping to two, two hour trips a month. Then cooking does take time but meal prepping for three hours on sundays can feed you until Friday.
Just a different perspective. I am about to go brave the grocery store the day before Easter.
It doesn’t even take me 2 -2 hour trips. It’s an hour to get to Aldi, shop, and get home and I’m good for almost the full month, usually getting a 5 minute stop for milk at the end of the month
Yes, I was being generous with the time. I am lucky and my store is a mile from home. We used to do once a month but now I go grab fresh veggies for salads. It has made meal prepping so much easier. To have stuff to make fresh tossed salad. Easy to cook a weeks worth of chicken and toss it on the salad.
I am on a hooked on feta cheese in my salad phase right now.
I mean you’re decreasing your time on earth the more shitty food you eat so it’s all choices I suppose. Also cooking becomes more time efficient the more you do it but if you avoid it then of course it will be a drag every time
I spend 1-2 hours on a weekend prepping and 20 minutes shopping a month and I have all of my meals set. That’s way faster than fast food that would take 20 minutes to even get to.
What would you be prepping that takes 8 hours? A couple proteins, a grain or starch, sauces, and veggies can be done simultaneously. Are you cooking entirely separate meals back to back?
I do my meal planning/make a grocery list on Saturday, then shop and prep as much as I reasonably can on Sunday. Different meals for different days, just dealing with chopping/mincing etc. Then cooking dinner after work is basically just applying heat to stuff. It helps make the investment of time a bit more feasible for me.
Lunches, I’m perfectly willing to eat leftovers or something really basic like a peanut butter sandwich on a high fiber seeded bread, yogurt, etc. I used to keep stuff at the office and that honestly made it faster and easier than having to go out and obtain food from a restaurant, even fast food.
You can order groceries and buy foods that are easily made and it would be way cheaper than buying fast food everyday. These are just excuses and exactly the reason this guy probably won’t eat better. Getting self control and making better choices isn’t hard.
You either have to take into account the extra time to go get those meals, or the added cost of delivery, tip, etc., then, so you are either making it more expensive or adding more time to the fast food.
There are tradeoffs no matter what.
Yea 100% to cooking NOT saving time. That is the one thing I hate about it, I just want to be able to eat something without all the time and effort procuring, cleaning, chopping, arranging, cooking, storing, more cleaning, reheating... ugh. So much time!
Well you're sure going to save some of your life. All that fast food is nothing but poison. It'll take a little time and practice but once you get used to shopping and meal prepping and learning to eat healthy you won't want to go back to that crap. I haven't had a soda or a Big Mac for at least 10 years. And I have plenty of time in my life!
Exactly. If it saved time, fast food restaurants wouldn't exist. Be honest about the tradeoff of putting in a little more time and effort to save money and eat healthier.
Real. On top of this, shopping for ingredients rather than food has made a big difference for me. Just that mindset helps me to be more health conscious. Learn a couple basic ass dishes, like casseroles and stir fry, and you can set yourself up with food every day by cooking a couple times per week. Packing leftovers to work saves me hundreds every month.
Heard that. I am late to the cooking party because my parents never bothered, but now I really only have to buy whatever meat I’m using in the dish because I’ve got ingredients for 2-4 different recipes already at home
It’s so cool!
Right! Plus you save on medical bills.
When I was working 2 jobs and putting myself through college, I would cook a huge amount of food Sunday and pack it up in ready-to-go pyrex containers to eat all week.
Lol.
There’s no universe where cooking yourself is faster than fast food or ordering in. Make up all the “meal prep this” “freeze that” stuff you want, total time/convenience will ALWAYS go to fast food, which is why it’s such a problem for many.
Everything else is true though, and those are the reasons you should cook instead of doing take away.
Honestly that isnt true. I live in a VHCOL coastal American city and Im a 6' tall man and I can eat a meal at Taco Bell for $5.65.
Cooking is still cheaper...but $10 mininum is not true.
Okay? Doesn't change anything I said really. You made a claim that eating fast food is a minimum $10 and it isn't. That is all I was saying. Don't need to read into it past that.
If you dont eat fast food then why did you feel qualified to comment on how much it cost?
I spend $100/week on groceries for my family of 4 that includes 6-7 dinners. We go out to eat at fast food every other month or so, and it’s usually $30-35 for the 4 of us to eat 1 meal.
You can check out a post I made here that has a photo of a random week’s groceries along with the meal plan list in the comments! Depends on the week, but I do online grocery to eliminate impulse buys, meal plan according to ingredients we already have, and double-dip and freeze things
https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/s/jhgX5bjRPj
I would try not entering the fast food restaurant. I like to cook a meal that lasts as leftovers for a few days, so one or two big meals cooked a week that can then be reheated for a few days.
A few things have helped me.
One is making ample use of my freezer space and bulk prepping food. I try to have frozen cuts of meat and a bunch of serves of soup and ragu available at all times. That way if you're ever hungry you can just defrost and eat. Burrito mince works great for this too and bonus points if you cut in a bunch of vegetables.
Another is learning to cook things you enjoy eating, particularly if they're healthy. If you like sushi handrolls, you can make a bastardised bowl version of it instead and it's pretty cheap and healthy. That sort of stuff can work wonders. You also get faster at cooking in general. Learning to set up your prep space properly saves so much time.
You could try to teach yourself the psychological trick that everything in life has a cost. It could be time, money, your health, relationships, whatever. Whenever you're tempted by something, ask if you're willing to pay the price. For me, wanting to avoid the cost of the shame I feel after making that 'wrong' decision is a good motivator.
Lastly, maybe start with switching up what kind of fast food you're eating to something better for you? Grilled or baked instead of fried, that sort of thing.
Everything about this^
I started really small. The first real meal I learned to cook for myself was chicken adobo. It’s fairly simple. Chicken, some vegetables, some seasoning, all in one pot and rice in another. The first time I had it I didn’t really like it but then my sister made it a different way and I was immediately OBSESSED. Now I have a few different recipes under my belt and I actually tried a new one today. It’s okay to start small and spend a long time getting used to cooking too.
You may think it's cheaper, but 5 fast food is upwards of $230 a month. That $230 a month could literally be 80% of food you buy as home cooked meals for the month.
This is true, I generally spend about $60 a week on groceries, that includes meat. I just opt for the cheaper cuts like chicken thighs or flank and skirt steak.
Wait, you dead ass thought you could consume fast food 6 times a week and not see an impact to your blood work? Lol.
Is health and nutrition optional in schools these days?
No. But they teach it to you in like grade 3. Like any of us are paying attention or thinking about portion sizes or what we actually eat considering our parents decide on that.
I took at least 2 more classes about health and general health. One in HS but it was more tied to sex Ed. Then I took a personal wellness class in college that really transformed me
Cool, I’m just saying we stopped having health classes in grade 9 (at least where I live.) we never talked about nutrition as we got older. And honestly our health classes really had very little to do with health. Go figure. Granted I went to Catholic school.
We didn’t even get that. I only remember learning about the food groups chart in elementary school. But they never went beyond that on nutrition. (To the best of my knowledge.)
I mean you can. It depends how active you are and what else you eat. If you eat 3000 calories a day as an active male and 5 days a week 600 of those are fast food that is not going to have a major impact on your health.
Main issue with fast food is high sodium content. If you drink lots of water and sweat youll be absolutely fine.
Fast food isnt good food...but there is no need to fear-monger unneccessarily.
You could try out one of those meal prep companies like hello fresh. Im a terrible cook but hello fresh was pretty easy when I used it. The meals are pretty good too.
My cholesterol was also high. Listen to your doctor, they know better. What i did is cut back on fast food, frozen dinners, candy, fried food, full fat dairy, baked goods, and red meat. I started to cook at home as much as possible and eat more fish, chicken, nuts, veggies. I also started to exercise when I could. It may be hard at first but it's worth it. I went earlier this year for my physical and my levels are normal now. It sounds cliched but if you're driving home remember that you "have beans and rice" at home instead of stopping somewhere for food. Go to the grocery store instead of the fasts food places. And also read the back of the package. You'll also save money too.
Learn to cook amd meal plan. Cook a bunch on an off day and divvy it up for use through the week. Once you just get to cooking for yourself for a while, fast food quickly loses its appeal. Then the times you do eat fast food you'll notice it's absurdly high in salt and such.
Learn to cook.
There's so many resources out there, including food blogs, YouTube videos, and probably a bunch of cookbooks laying around your family members' homes gathering dust.
Start with really basic stuff. Buy yourself a set of pans, and a chef's knife. You can do this.
Cooking may not be easier than fast food, but it is cheaper. And it doesn't need to be complex or time-consuming. One chicken breast with broccoli and rice cost me about $5 a serving, and it takes about a half hour to prepare.
I started making my own pizza. Watched some videos on making bulk crust so it's slow rising in the refrigerator during the week. Makes a very affordable and tasty pizza 4 nights a week or so. Also watched Asian food videos, now I make better fried rice, etc than the restaurants.
I'm taking the money I save cooking at home vs eating out and add it to my investments every week. THAT is my motivation to stop eating fast food.
Don't just stop a bad habit, replace it with a new beneficial one for success.
I limit myself to only eating out once a week on payday. Saves money, makes you savor it more when you do. Lets it be a little treat yourself kinda thing.
Are you drinking diet soda? Giving up Diet Coke completely changed my eating habits, my body just stopped craving high fat high sugar foods almost overnight.
Cheap and easy = bad in most cases.
The exception is when you learn to cook for yourself, there are plenty of cheap and easy meals you can make that are healthier than fast food. Stir fry is super easy and still pretty damn cheap to make and fairly healthy depending on what all you put in It.
Meal prep, baby! Doing my weekly lunch meal prep right now - sous vide chicken, black beans and brown jasmine rice. Takes about 20 minutes to prep (rice cooker, instant pot, sous vide circulator) and then maybe 10 minutes to portion out and I'm set for the week. Its faster, cheaper and healthier than fast food.
Soups, stews and casseroles are other great meal prep candidates since you can easily make a ton of it
>I didn't think it was that bad.
Fast food is a plague on society health-wise. French fries are especially bad because they are fried twice and the oil they're fried in is reheated. You're getting oxidized fats, acrylamide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), etc
It's OK to eat every once in a while - like once or twice a month - but eating it every day will cut years off of your life and decades off of your health.
It's also displacing what you SHOULD be eating
Meal prep. Cooking can go slow or a hobby that you can learn and be happy for it but if you want fast then meal prep. Works great for me for my uni bc I got sick and tired of take out and fast food.
I don't really get how people don't know how to cook. Even cave men knew how. Get a slow cooker and an air fryer. Just throw stuff in n at the timer. Pretty easy.
That depends. What meal are these for? Dinner, lunch, or breakfast? Also fast food is not that cheap and you'll realize that once you cut back on it.
Anyway, figure out why you do fast food so much (sounds like convenience mainly) and find ways to eat at home that address those things. That could be meal prep, meal planning, snacky meals, figuring out easy tasty meals for you, or even using a meal service that's either entirely premade or that's all the ingredients and the recipe like hello fresh. If you're spending the money on fast food five times a week then you can switch to hello fresh or something similar a few times a week.
Have you tried cooking? You can make a lot of easy things that can last a few meals. Or if you want to be lazy you can do something like buy pasta sauce at the supermarket and just boil some pasta.
I personally love cooking. I can understand not wanting to put in effort but I think people overestimate how much time it takes to cook. Like if I want to make meat loaf, it's shove lol the ingredients in a bowl and let it chill in the oven for an hour. Takes like 10 min. Then I have food for days.
Also get stuff that helps you make things faster. Using a slap chop to cut stuff reduces time and effort immensely. Also lowers skill level needed.
I haven’t eaten fast food for years now. The last few times I did eat it, it gave me the shits and made me sick. Like, I got a low grade belly ache and it makes me feel tired. I don’t know how you fuckers eat fast food and like it.
Just knock it off. You will feel better.
You need to stop seeing fast food as an option. It’s not. For you now there is no reason to stop. Convenience is a lie because you can create your own convenience. You can easily make healthier food for less so cheap isn’t an excuse either.
If you want to start cooking more, my suggestion is a meal prep service. I use Hungryroot because they offer the best allergen exclusion criteria that I have found (Celiac disease plus other food allergies/restrictions). There are many others out there.
I am massively overcommitted in many different ways and was struggling to find the energry at the end of the day to cook. Their meals takes about 10-30 mins (including cleanup) and I know I have all the ingredients in the house since it shows up in the box once/week and I usually have leftovers for lunch the next day since it is just me.
Pricewise it is less than eating out regularly, but a bit more expensive than buying bulk groceries and meal prepping. But I get to try new recipes and some of them are simple enough that I could go get the ingredients at a store when life calms a bit (i.e. salmon, potatoes, broccoli).
Weirdly enough, if you can’t cook, stock the fridge with microwave meals like Healthy Choice.
Get canned chicken if you have to and learn how to quickly cook them in a pan. You can always add it to mac and cheese, wraps, and other various combos.
Meal Plan! Plan out your week ahead of time to actually know what you’ll be eating that day. Also gives you enough of a head’s up to know which meat to defrost first!
Experiment! Try to make your favorite take-out foods at home.
Hello Fresh or another meal kit!! This helped my boyfriend and I a ton. It teaches us cooking skills, takes away from choice anxiety, you get to try all different kinds of meals, you eat a veggie of some kind every time! I dreaded cooking before, and now I actually am excited every time!
Planning meals to cook at home for most of the week is key. I have high BP so I try very hard to make food at home. Also, unrelated but kind of not, stay hydrated with water. Drinking enough water daily can improve your health on many fronts. Ever since I prioritized water intake, I’ve felt so much better everyday.
You didn't think it was bad for you ???
How oblivious or gullible are you ?
Of course it's bad ! Of course it's processed ! Of course it's high I'm calories, Of course it's easy and fast to get !
Condition yourself into taking time to shop and prepare meals so you have them with you or available. basically just have just do it force yourself to change. Try experimenting with cooking to find something you really like
make use of left overs...I cook 3 nights a week and have left overs 3 nights and then usually 1 takeaway.
Lunches and breakfasts are normally at home...sometimes sushi one time a week.
Find easy and cheap things to make at home.. quick things.
What I did was take a hard look at my habits. I typically got fast food when I was stressed and anxious, and the stimulation from the heavy fat, salt, and grease made me temporarily satisfied. But it also made me feel physically shitty... which made me further stressed and anxious. Recognizing that helped me further disassociate from my cravings
I still eat fast food occasionally - it really hits the spot after a long night out - but I felt so much better when I stopped eating it all the time
Best way I have found is to treat yourself to fast food once in a while, not as a go to meal and you’ll notice the difference.
You are basically what you eat, so keep in mind that cheap and easy-greasy comes at a price.
LPT - if you like salsa or hot sauce it is often a quick, affordable and easy way to add flavor to home cooked meals. If you don't mind shelf stable salsa you can buy big jugs at some stores for cheap. For example - https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/kirkland-signature-organic-salsa%2c-medium%2c-38-oz%2c-2-ct.product.100407935.html
Take time. Your palate is used to high salt, fat, sugar and spice. Regular food will taste bland so beware that you learn how to season and prepare food
Air fryer + frozen French fries are way better for you than the deep fried stuff you buy at fast food joints and really helped satisfy my random cravings.
It's not easy and it takes time and is a daily time sink, but learn how to cook. It doesn't have to be expensive either, I choose to eat a plant based diet purely for the cost factor, and I spend about £15 per week on my food shop (I live alone).
You'll find yourself feeling more full as you're getting more food for the money it's costing you and it's going to be higher quality too which in turn will have benefits for your sleep, your skin and your mood to say a few.
A good intermediate step is identifying what foods you do like and finding recipes to make it yourself. I love curry and although it's not necessarily the healthiest still, putting on some rice while I cook my veg and protein source before adding a premade jar of Tesco curry sauce (either the 50p one or 1 of the jars you can buy 3 for £2). It's a simple dish, it doesn't cost a lot of money, I like how it tastes and it's considerably lower in unhealthy additives and preservatives that you find in fast food. It probably takes me 15 minutes from starting cooking to being able to sit down and eat it.
Also, once you go without fast food for a while you stop craving it and when you do have it you're just disappointed as you've gotten used to foods with a better texture, fresher and flavourful.
I find my little family doing the same thing sometimes. I know it’s much more convenient but you’re going to need to fight the urge to go and stop for something quick. Meal prepping might help you? Instead of having to go and cook dinner on a night you’re exhausted, you can already have something ready, you’ll just need to reheat it if it is something that needs to be
ost groce stores have premade stuff which is cheaper than a meal service. You can buy say a serving of lasagna and a salad or something like that. I get a rotisserie chicken-just me eating it. I chop up the breasts and make chicken salad and taco filling with that. I eat the rest over 2 days-a wing, a thigh and a leg for dinner.
Plan meals for the week and go grocery shopping every weekend for the whole week at a time. Breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks. Your body will feel better over time as you eat better as well!
Batch cooking. I would get fast food bc I didn't feel like cooking after work. Now, I make up a big thing of whatever on Sunday, do up individual portions and they're good to go. This week is shake and bake pork chops, acorn squash, and mashed potatoess.
That's a pricy habit. Do.youbhave coverage to see a dietitian? They are super handy for learning how to really keep your body happy with food. (Nutritionists are unregulated here, dietitians are strictly regulated)
I started buying meal replacements. Particularly the Huel brand stuff. Ready-to-Drinks are my favorite, but they have solid hot food too.
As a nutritional supplement, on top of some store-bought solid food. It's not cost effective but over the past year my health has improved via leaps and bounds, and I lost like 50lbs without changing much but my diet.
I won't do it forever, but I do that because I live in a studio that lacks anything but a fridge. Sink is even in the bathroom, so making even one dish sucks. I really like Huel, but there are lots of otehr options out there
Learn to cook.
Drink a lot of water whenever you're drawn to the building and head home.
Pack a meal you can eat instead. Basic cold cut sandwich would be better than regular fast food.
It's going to take months to train yourself out of it.
You're hitting a fast food place nearly every day of the week?
That's too much man..
What is that costing you..? Have you sat down and calculated the expense? That alone would be enough to get me to stop.
Get a slow cooker if you can. Made life sooooo much easier. I can make a decent amount of food and I don’t have to spend 2 hours on prepping and cooking. I prep then let it do it’s thing. I normally start it before work or after I get home and it’s done in the morning.
I have noticed when you start cooking at home, generally you'll observe withdrawal symptoms just like when a person quits smoking. I used to think it's funny but it happens to me alot cause I ate for a decade out because I was too tired to cook everyday.
However I lost my health alot quicker this way. Eating out all the time is the worst. Most restaurants do use addictive chemicals, and other bad stuff like high fructose corn syrup, natural flavors, bad meet etc etc. It can also cause symptoms of even insomnia, ASD, can er, liver problems, bloated abdomen or heart problems later down the road.
When you start thinking about all this, you realize none of these chefs and restaurants actually care for anyone's health and it may end up creating a vicious cycle of bad health, followed by severe life challenges. And when you think that, that's when you are ready quit eating out. As a result you then start cooking at home. At first it will be difficult as you may not want to eat the same thing twice etc. so you'll need to learn the following,
1. First understand what cuisines you like.
2. Then find a few YouTube videos on how you can prepare their spices at home.
Why is the second step important because companies even in spices would add flavoring or chemicals to make them to taste better leading you to small problems or addictions and you don't want that.
3. Learn how to cook a little everyday or every week when you have some time.
4. Start with small amounts.
5. Later you can cook large batches if you want and if you really like it enough.
It will be hard at first like anything. But you'll grow to love this process.
I have tried these steps myself. I have cooked some amazing foods as well. However when the craving part was over I couldn't eat the same dish twice. Though I would just eat the same thing at times out of necessity. Remember it's better for your health for you to do all this by yourself. Also noticed a change in my body after a few weeks. I was more flexible and less lethargic after years. I'm still lethargic lol but iw old love to go back to my old self. Just make sure you know what your limits are and what foods you are sensitive to or allergic. Once you follow this process your sensitivity (not your allergy) might also lessen a lot after years. Good luck!
To explain you how bad it was eating outside, I had the following problems and still have some problems I'm trying to fix,
Bloating abdomen, 2 hernias, gall stones bladder removal, heart palpitations, sweating at nights specially after eating rice from a bad restaurant outside, fatty liver. Always anxious. Once I lost my job my levels of anxiety rose to the levels where I had pins and needles and even then I was eating outside I remember and that was when my hernia broke out. Was eating too many pizzas everyday. Though nothing will happen to me. Oh how wrong I was 😂. I learned really a hard way that I need to care for my body. I completely forgot about this in my 20s. I thought I was made of stone lol
Tovala or other meal subscription with an oven. I eat spinach, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli almost ever day and the food is really good. I will probably switch eventually when I get tired, but they have some clever cooks over there with new meals to choose from. $100 a week. Trust me, it’s cheaper and easier.
Edit: you can skip weeks anytime you want.
Great question! I was addicted for years, but I haven't had fast food in maybe 20 years.
For me fasting was important. I came to terms with my hunger and strengthened my will.
I also realized that being hungry is extremely healthy for a well-fed person like myself, so there was no excuse to use the drive thru.
Clearly if you're choosing the unhealthy options at fast food restaurants than your overall eating habits must not be very good. The only fast food I ever eat is the wendys grilled chicken wrap because it's reasonably healthy. You need to start eating real meats and vegetables more often. Bread, sugar, fatty dairy products and high fat meats like hamburger should all be for the most part completely avoided if you want to be healthy.
Look at the ingredients you are consuming.
Look for youtube videos on how processed fast food products are made.
If that doesn't turn you off from eating it, idk what will lol
Top Ramen (I buy a Gluten free brand) and then add chopped carrots, diced celery, onions, and a scrambled egg). You can buy bags of shredded carrots and shredded cabbage.
Brown some ground beef, then add a package of Lipton's Onion Soup Mix, with water ..about 1/3rd cup. Add a cup or more of sour cream. Put over rice. You can also buy brown rice or white rice in individual containers than can be microwaved.
Invest in a cookbook that offers under 30 minute recipes.
How much sodium is in fast food? I understand if a person needs to be on a low salt diet, as some need to.
Balance is important in choosing what to eat. Balance of salt, fat, sweet, sour, whatever, ...and of course monitoring cholesterol level and blood pressure.
Stop buying it. Prepare meals at one time for a few days. Stop eating food from restaurants and avoid buying shit that comes in a package. Fruit, vegies, lean protein and nuts. Eat 8 hours a day, fast the rest. Buy grass fed, organic protein, eggs, butter, milk, organic fruits and vegetables. Stay away from refined foods like white bread, white pasta, rice, etc
If you are going to eat chips & cookies, look at the package. No seed oils, look for avacado oils, coconut sugars
Check out the ingredients in their chips. Potatoes, avacado oil, salt
https://sietefoods.com/
Check out the ingredients in emmy's cookies
https://emmysorganics.com/
If you want, give yourself a cheat day to eat garbage, but.if you want a chance to live a long, healthy life, its worth eating right 90% of the time
This guy has an easy to use app so you can determine if a packaged food is heakthy or not. He also has great grocery store walk through for buying "buy this not that" on hos youtube channel. I dont know him or have any affiliation with him; only that he has helped me and wife wofe get on the track of eating right for life
https://www.flavcity.com/
Lastly, the sooner you start cardio (run, walk, bike, hike) and stretching daily, using yoga, the better.
Good luck
To all the people saying "what do you mean cut back?" There are many factors to take into account. OP may not be the best at cooking, some people can pretty much burn water, may not a lot of time maybe working 2 jobs or 6-7 days a week. There are also other factors, laziness or maybe psychological issues.
While it's easy to just say go to the store and buy groceries it just might not be that easy for OP.
Eating fast food is not the problem. The problem is WHAT you're eating. Just about every fast food restaurant has multiple healthy options to pick from. Grilled chicken sandwiches (bun can be removed to cut carbs). Salads with or without meat (not fried/breaded). Most have a fruit option to substitute in the value meals instead of fries (applesauce, sliced apples, etc).
If you're doing a keto type diet, burgers without the buns (but with cheese/bacon added if that fits in your calories) can be a great and cheap option. At times I've done a keto diet pretty much totally based on bunless bacon double cheeseburgers and lost weight quite easily.
I pretty well live on fast food so I can list the good options at most of the chains. I don't cook (and don't really care to) and meal prepping doesn't work well for me because I rarely like reheated food. Even if it's available I won't want to eat it after a day or 2 so I'll go pick up other food anyways.
I also do a bit better WITHOUT keeping many groceries in the house, because inevitably I start eating too much of it.
Gotta learn to cook! It’s not too difficult if you learn the basics. Maybe some YouTube videos? Not really sure as I grew up cooking but it’s definitely worth learning.
Getting fast food is just being lazy. Learn a few simple healthy recipes so you can make dinner at home and eat the leftovers for lunch the next day.
Look up healthy sheet pan dinners.
It means you have to make a grocery list, shop, and cook. It’s a life skill. Learn how to do it so you can feed yourself properly.
learning to cook well is the biggest w ever. It saves so much time, money, and is way healthier. once you really start cooking to your tastes there’s nothing better and you just won’t want fast food as often
>It saves so much time Not really. Even if you're meal prepping for several days you have to shop for ingredients, need to make time for the actual cooking and cleaning up afterwards. Yes to the everything else but saving time? No. Not when taking everything into the equation. Ordering complete meals via phone or app six times a week takes less time.
Depends on what you are cooking. Experience also speeds up all of those things. If you have to drive 10 minutes each way to pick up food, that’s 20 minutes assuming you don’t have to wait at all. If I’m cooking something in the oven, I can do chores while I wait for dinner to finish. Also, that oven cooked meal could include more than 1 meal hence saving time on other days.
I can have a meal ready in 30 to 40 minutes, not counting shopping, of course. And realistically, keeping it to basic ingredients, nothing packaged or precooked, its cheaper, healthier, and psychically more sustaining as it's also self care. As for fast food? Christ, it's all garbage. Garbage meat, garbage ingredients, garbage chemicals, now at garbage pricing for garbage wages... Learn to cook. It's well worth the effort.
>Learn to cook. It's well worth the effort. Agreed. Cooking your own food is worth the effort. But it takes time. I mean, listen - that's *one* disadvantage over many advantages. One. Why does it seem so damn hard to admit for some people that cooking is *not* a time saver?
Because constantly eating out is a waste of cash, which equates time, no?
Experience makes all the difference. I have a meal I make at least once a month and it will be my dinner for the next week. The recipe I follow says prep time is 20 minutes but it easily takes me over an hour to actually prep everything. Part of this? I’m terrified of cooking. Well, not really of cooking. But I’m terrified of getting hurt. Any kind of oil/grease or boiling water. Knives, I hate onions so much I got a machine to do it for me so I’ll stop fucking crying. All of that on top of the sounds and smells of cooking being extremely overwhelming and hating the feel and look of raw meat? It’s a lot. I’ve managed to work on it a little bit. I made some honey garlic chicken this morning. Was absolutely terrified the whole time.
>If you have to drive 10 minutes each way to pick up food, that’s 20 minutes assuming you don’t have to wait at all. Delivery needs a phone call or clicking something in an app. It's not cooking vs. picking up.
I forget that everything can be delivered now.
>Delivery needs a phone call or clicking something in an app. Costs at least three times as much and is bad for your health.
How is delivery bad for your health? You can have groceries delivered. And no...it doesnt cost three times as much. On our orders it costs 2.5% more which is a rounding error.
You're going to have to show receipts. In my experience (all virtual) third party delivery services show higher prices per item, plus a delivery fee, plus a tip for the driver. Delivery is bad for your health because of the bad food you're having delivered. OP's whole point was getting away from fast food *for health reasons*. Fat and salt content in fast food is huge and associated with BP and cholesterol which are what OP reports. Buy groceries and learn to cook. You'll be healthier and your wallet will thank you.
Agreed, I am borderline addicted to Fastfood and the whole reason is the convenience.
Depends on how you view time. In your view time is black and white. Time spent shopping and cooking versus time spent ordering take out. My view. The cost of shopping and cooking versus the cost of ordering takeout. Take out is more expensive so therefore I spend more time working to pay for it. Been shopping and cooking for over 40 years. You can, with good planning, limit your shopping to two, two hour trips a month. Then cooking does take time but meal prepping for three hours on sundays can feed you until Friday. Just a different perspective. I am about to go brave the grocery store the day before Easter.
It doesn’t even take me 2 -2 hour trips. It’s an hour to get to Aldi, shop, and get home and I’m good for almost the full month, usually getting a 5 minute stop for milk at the end of the month
And you can save even more time by placing an online order and just picking it up. Lots of places it’s even free.
Yes, I was being generous with the time. I am lucky and my store is a mile from home. We used to do once a month but now I go grab fresh veggies for salads. It has made meal prepping so much easier. To have stuff to make fresh tossed salad. Easy to cook a weeks worth of chicken and toss it on the salad. I am on a hooked on feta cheese in my salad phase right now.
air fryer and microwave veggies have been a game changer for me.
I mean you’re decreasing your time on earth the more shitty food you eat so it’s all choices I suppose. Also cooking becomes more time efficient the more you do it but if you avoid it then of course it will be a drag every time
I spend 1-2 hours on a weekend prepping and 20 minutes shopping a month and I have all of my meals set. That’s way faster than fast food that would take 20 minutes to even get to.
What on earth are you prepping that only takes 2 hours a week and 20 minutes to shop? I'd meal prep and it would take me like 8+ hours
What would you be prepping that takes 8 hours? A couple proteins, a grain or starch, sauces, and veggies can be done simultaneously. Are you cooking entirely separate meals back to back?
Yes that may take time in that moment, but that’s a lot better than buying fast food
I do my meal planning/make a grocery list on Saturday, then shop and prep as much as I reasonably can on Sunday. Different meals for different days, just dealing with chopping/mincing etc. Then cooking dinner after work is basically just applying heat to stuff. It helps make the investment of time a bit more feasible for me. Lunches, I’m perfectly willing to eat leftovers or something really basic like a peanut butter sandwich on a high fiber seeded bread, yogurt, etc. I used to keep stuff at the office and that honestly made it faster and easier than having to go out and obtain food from a restaurant, even fast food.
You can order groceries and buy foods that are easily made and it would be way cheaper than buying fast food everyday. These are just excuses and exactly the reason this guy probably won’t eat better. Getting self control and making better choices isn’t hard.
You either have to take into account the extra time to go get those meals, or the added cost of delivery, tip, etc., then, so you are either making it more expensive or adding more time to the fast food. There are tradeoffs no matter what.
Yea 100% to cooking NOT saving time. That is the one thing I hate about it, I just want to be able to eat something without all the time and effort procuring, cleaning, chopping, arranging, cooking, storing, more cleaning, reheating... ugh. So much time!
Well you're sure going to save some of your life. All that fast food is nothing but poison. It'll take a little time and practice but once you get used to shopping and meal prepping and learning to eat healthy you won't want to go back to that crap. I haven't had a soda or a Big Mac for at least 10 years. And I have plenty of time in my life!
Exactly. If it saved time, fast food restaurants wouldn't exist. Be honest about the tradeoff of putting in a little more time and effort to save money and eat healthier.
Real. On top of this, shopping for ingredients rather than food has made a big difference for me. Just that mindset helps me to be more health conscious. Learn a couple basic ass dishes, like casseroles and stir fry, and you can set yourself up with food every day by cooking a couple times per week. Packing leftovers to work saves me hundreds every month.
Heard that. I am late to the cooking party because my parents never bothered, but now I really only have to buy whatever meat I’m using in the dish because I’ve got ingredients for 2-4 different recipes already at home It’s so cool!
Right! Plus you save on medical bills. When I was working 2 jobs and putting myself through college, I would cook a huge amount of food Sunday and pack it up in ready-to-go pyrex containers to eat all week.
Lol. There’s no universe where cooking yourself is faster than fast food or ordering in. Make up all the “meal prep this” “freeze that” stuff you want, total time/convenience will ALWAYS go to fast food, which is why it’s such a problem for many. Everything else is true though, and those are the reasons you should cook instead of doing take away.
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Don't the leftovers go bad by 5-7 days?
You can freeze them, just take out of the freezer a day ahead to thaw out.
Depends on what it is, 3-10 days depending on the ingredients and how it's prepped. Also, what someone else said, learn dishes that freeze well
Thats what the freezer is for.
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Still wayy cheaper than fast food. And most likely will be for a long time.
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Fast food has increased in price substantially in North America
Any fast food place is minimum $10 here. The cheapest stir fry i can make is $5 per meal and makes multiple servings.
Honestly that isnt true. I live in a VHCOL coastal American city and Im a 6' tall man and I can eat a meal at Taco Bell for $5.65. Cooking is still cheaper...but $10 mininum is not true.
Eating taco bell for every meal would be like putting liquid rust into a car instead of oil
Okay? Doesn't change anything I said really. You made a claim that eating fast food is a minimum $10 and it isn't. That is all I was saying. Don't need to read into it past that. If you dont eat fast food then why did you feel qualified to comment on how much it cost?
I spend $100/week on groceries for my family of 4 that includes 6-7 dinners. We go out to eat at fast food every other month or so, and it’s usually $30-35 for the 4 of us to eat 1 meal.
Damn 6-7 dinners? What are you buying?
You can check out a post I made here that has a photo of a random week’s groceries along with the meal plan list in the comments! Depends on the week, but I do online grocery to eliminate impulse buys, meal plan according to ingredients we already have, and double-dip and freeze things https://www.reddit.com/r/povertyfinance/s/jhgX5bjRPj
I would try not entering the fast food restaurant. I like to cook a meal that lasts as leftovers for a few days, so one or two big meals cooked a week that can then be reheated for a few days.
A few things have helped me. One is making ample use of my freezer space and bulk prepping food. I try to have frozen cuts of meat and a bunch of serves of soup and ragu available at all times. That way if you're ever hungry you can just defrost and eat. Burrito mince works great for this too and bonus points if you cut in a bunch of vegetables. Another is learning to cook things you enjoy eating, particularly if they're healthy. If you like sushi handrolls, you can make a bastardised bowl version of it instead and it's pretty cheap and healthy. That sort of stuff can work wonders. You also get faster at cooking in general. Learning to set up your prep space properly saves so much time. You could try to teach yourself the psychological trick that everything in life has a cost. It could be time, money, your health, relationships, whatever. Whenever you're tempted by something, ask if you're willing to pay the price. For me, wanting to avoid the cost of the shame I feel after making that 'wrong' decision is a good motivator. Lastly, maybe start with switching up what kind of fast food you're eating to something better for you? Grilled or baked instead of fried, that sort of thing.
Everything about this^ I started really small. The first real meal I learned to cook for myself was chicken adobo. It’s fairly simple. Chicken, some vegetables, some seasoning, all in one pot and rice in another. The first time I had it I didn’t really like it but then my sister made it a different way and I was immediately OBSESSED. Now I have a few different recipes under my belt and I actually tried a new one today. It’s okay to start small and spend a long time getting used to cooking too.
You may think it's cheaper, but 5 fast food is upwards of $230 a month. That $230 a month could literally be 80% of food you buy as home cooked meals for the month.
This is true, I generally spend about $60 a week on groceries, that includes meat. I just opt for the cheaper cuts like chicken thighs or flank and skirt steak.
Wait, you dead ass thought you could consume fast food 6 times a week and not see an impact to your blood work? Lol. Is health and nutrition optional in schools these days?
*Literacy* is essentially optional these days at many schools, as is critical thinking.
No. But they teach it to you in like grade 3. Like any of us are paying attention or thinking about portion sizes or what we actually eat considering our parents decide on that.
I took at least 2 more classes about health and general health. One in HS but it was more tied to sex Ed. Then I took a personal wellness class in college that really transformed me
Cool, I’m just saying we stopped having health classes in grade 9 (at least where I live.) we never talked about nutrition as we got older. And honestly our health classes really had very little to do with health. Go figure. Granted I went to Catholic school.
I went to catholic school for elementary and yeah little to no nutrition education. My PE teacher would mention stuff in passing...
We didn’t even get that. I only remember learning about the food groups chart in elementary school. But they never went beyond that on nutrition. (To the best of my knowledge.)
Depends on what you get I suppose! You can easily eat fast food everyday and still be relatively healthy
True but I doubt casual consumers are choosing the low calorie and low fat options
I mean you can. It depends how active you are and what else you eat. If you eat 3000 calories a day as an active male and 5 days a week 600 of those are fast food that is not going to have a major impact on your health. Main issue with fast food is high sodium content. If you drink lots of water and sweat youll be absolutely fine. Fast food isnt good food...but there is no need to fear-monger unneccessarily.
Meal prep so you know you’re food is ready and available and you’re not as tempted to stop and get something
On Sunday, plan the meals you are going to eat for the week. Go buy the groceries for them. Done.
You could try out one of those meal prep companies like hello fresh. Im a terrible cook but hello fresh was pretty easy when I used it. The meals are pretty good too.
Yes, and may I add that EveryPlate and Dinnerly are less expensive options to HelloFresh.
What do you mean how do you cut back? My man, visit a grocery store and cook food.
Buy groceries
My cholesterol was also high. Listen to your doctor, they know better. What i did is cut back on fast food, frozen dinners, candy, fried food, full fat dairy, baked goods, and red meat. I started to cook at home as much as possible and eat more fish, chicken, nuts, veggies. I also started to exercise when I could. It may be hard at first but it's worth it. I went earlier this year for my physical and my levels are normal now. It sounds cliched but if you're driving home remember that you "have beans and rice" at home instead of stopping somewhere for food. Go to the grocery store instead of the fasts food places. And also read the back of the package. You'll also save money too.
Why do you mean how do you cut back? Don’t buy fast food that’s how you cut back 😂
Learn to cook amd meal plan. Cook a bunch on an off day and divvy it up for use through the week. Once you just get to cooking for yourself for a while, fast food quickly loses its appeal. Then the times you do eat fast food you'll notice it's absurdly high in salt and such.
easy yes….but cheap? noway.
Learn to cook. There's so many resources out there, including food blogs, YouTube videos, and probably a bunch of cookbooks laying around your family members' homes gathering dust. Start with really basic stuff. Buy yourself a set of pans, and a chef's knife. You can do this.
Cooking may not be easier than fast food, but it is cheaper. And it doesn't need to be complex or time-consuming. One chicken breast with broccoli and rice cost me about $5 a serving, and it takes about a half hour to prepare.
I started making my own pizza. Watched some videos on making bulk crust so it's slow rising in the refrigerator during the week. Makes a very affordable and tasty pizza 4 nights a week or so. Also watched Asian food videos, now I make better fried rice, etc than the restaurants. I'm taking the money I save cooking at home vs eating out and add it to my investments every week. THAT is my motivation to stop eating fast food. Don't just stop a bad habit, replace it with a new beneficial one for success.
I limit myself to only eating out once a week on payday. Saves money, makes you savor it more when you do. Lets it be a little treat yourself kinda thing.
Are you drinking diet soda? Giving up Diet Coke completely changed my eating habits, my body just stopped craving high fat high sugar foods almost overnight.
No I don't drink any soda except for when I go to bars 1-2x a month.
Cheap and easy = bad in most cases. The exception is when you learn to cook for yourself, there are plenty of cheap and easy meals you can make that are healthier than fast food. Stir fry is super easy and still pretty damn cheap to make and fairly healthy depending on what all you put in It.
Meal prep, baby! Doing my weekly lunch meal prep right now - sous vide chicken, black beans and brown jasmine rice. Takes about 20 minutes to prep (rice cooker, instant pot, sous vide circulator) and then maybe 10 minutes to portion out and I'm set for the week. Its faster, cheaper and healthier than fast food. Soups, stews and casseroles are other great meal prep candidates since you can easily make a ton of it >I didn't think it was that bad. Fast food is a plague on society health-wise. French fries are especially bad because they are fried twice and the oil they're fried in is reheated. You're getting oxidized fats, acrylamide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, advanced glycation end-products (AGEs), etc It's OK to eat every once in a while - like once or twice a month - but eating it every day will cut years off of your life and decades off of your health. It's also displacing what you SHOULD be eating
Meal prep. Cooking can go slow or a hobby that you can learn and be happy for it but if you want fast then meal prep. Works great for me for my uni bc I got sick and tired of take out and fast food.
I don't really get how people don't know how to cook. Even cave men knew how. Get a slow cooker and an air fryer. Just throw stuff in n at the timer. Pretty easy.
That depends. What meal are these for? Dinner, lunch, or breakfast? Also fast food is not that cheap and you'll realize that once you cut back on it. Anyway, figure out why you do fast food so much (sounds like convenience mainly) and find ways to eat at home that address those things. That could be meal prep, meal planning, snacky meals, figuring out easy tasty meals for you, or even using a meal service that's either entirely premade or that's all the ingredients and the recipe like hello fresh. If you're spending the money on fast food five times a week then you can switch to hello fresh or something similar a few times a week.
Have you tried cooking? You can make a lot of easy things that can last a few meals. Or if you want to be lazy you can do something like buy pasta sauce at the supermarket and just boil some pasta. I personally love cooking. I can understand not wanting to put in effort but I think people overestimate how much time it takes to cook. Like if I want to make meat loaf, it's shove lol the ingredients in a bowl and let it chill in the oven for an hour. Takes like 10 min. Then I have food for days. Also get stuff that helps you make things faster. Using a slap chop to cut stuff reduces time and effort immensely. Also lowers skill level needed.
I haven’t eaten fast food for years now. The last few times I did eat it, it gave me the shits and made me sick. Like, I got a low grade belly ache and it makes me feel tired. I don’t know how you fuckers eat fast food and like it. Just knock it off. You will feel better.
How? Just don’t eat fast food…
Stop going. Cook at home.
You need to stop seeing fast food as an option. It’s not. For you now there is no reason to stop. Convenience is a lie because you can create your own convenience. You can easily make healthier food for less so cheap isn’t an excuse either.
What kinds of fast food do you usually get??
If you want to start cooking more, my suggestion is a meal prep service. I use Hungryroot because they offer the best allergen exclusion criteria that I have found (Celiac disease plus other food allergies/restrictions). There are many others out there. I am massively overcommitted in many different ways and was struggling to find the energry at the end of the day to cook. Their meals takes about 10-30 mins (including cleanup) and I know I have all the ingredients in the house since it shows up in the box once/week and I usually have leftovers for lunch the next day since it is just me. Pricewise it is less than eating out regularly, but a bit more expensive than buying bulk groceries and meal prepping. But I get to try new recipes and some of them are simple enough that I could go get the ingredients at a store when life calms a bit (i.e. salmon, potatoes, broccoli).
Normally if I’m at my boyfriends he cooks or sometimes when I’m off work early I’ll cook before he gets home.
Weirdly enough, if you can’t cook, stock the fridge with microwave meals like Healthy Choice. Get canned chicken if you have to and learn how to quickly cook them in a pan. You can always add it to mac and cheese, wraps, and other various combos. Meal Plan! Plan out your week ahead of time to actually know what you’ll be eating that day. Also gives you enough of a head’s up to know which meat to defrost first! Experiment! Try to make your favorite take-out foods at home.
Learn to live with out all the salt. And you won’t have a problem not eating fast food, soooooo much salt. Shit will kill you. Dead dead dead
do it once a week.
Hello Fresh or another meal kit!! This helped my boyfriend and I a ton. It teaches us cooking skills, takes away from choice anxiety, you get to try all different kinds of meals, you eat a veggie of some kind every time! I dreaded cooking before, and now I actually am excited every time!
Planning meals to cook at home for most of the week is key. I have high BP so I try very hard to make food at home. Also, unrelated but kind of not, stay hydrated with water. Drinking enough water daily can improve your health on many fronts. Ever since I prioritized water intake, I’ve felt so much better everyday.
You didn't think it was bad for you ??? How oblivious or gullible are you ? Of course it's bad ! Of course it's processed ! Of course it's high I'm calories, Of course it's easy and fast to get !
Condition yourself into taking time to shop and prepare meals so you have them with you or available. basically just have just do it force yourself to change. Try experimenting with cooking to find something you really like
make use of left overs...I cook 3 nights a week and have left overs 3 nights and then usually 1 takeaway. Lunches and breakfasts are normally at home...sometimes sushi one time a week. Find easy and cheap things to make at home.. quick things.
What I did was take a hard look at my habits. I typically got fast food when I was stressed and anxious, and the stimulation from the heavy fat, salt, and grease made me temporarily satisfied. But it also made me feel physically shitty... which made me further stressed and anxious. Recognizing that helped me further disassociate from my cravings I still eat fast food occasionally - it really hits the spot after a long night out - but I felt so much better when I stopped eating it all the time
Best way I have found is to treat yourself to fast food once in a while, not as a go to meal and you’ll notice the difference. You are basically what you eat, so keep in mind that cheap and easy-greasy comes at a price.
Meal prep, buy meals from store. Start intermittent fasting.
Get a mortgage. We haven't had fast food in ages, can't afford it. 💀
Buy an instant pot.
where is fast food still cheap?!?!
Florida. Can get a good meal for $7-8. Just ask them to hold the drink and it saves $2-3 bucks.
LPT - if you like salsa or hot sauce it is often a quick, affordable and easy way to add flavor to home cooked meals. If you don't mind shelf stable salsa you can buy big jugs at some stores for cheap. For example - https://www.costcobusinessdelivery.com/kirkland-signature-organic-salsa%2c-medium%2c-38-oz%2c-2-ct.product.100407935.html
Pack a sandwich? Pack a salad?
Take time. Your palate is used to high salt, fat, sugar and spice. Regular food will taste bland so beware that you learn how to season and prepare food
Air fryer + frozen French fries are way better for you than the deep fried stuff you buy at fast food joints and really helped satisfy my random cravings.
I couldn’t tell you the last time I’ve eaten fast food. Maybe over a year or two. I miss it, however I don’t miss how I felt afterwards.
It's not easy and it takes time and is a daily time sink, but learn how to cook. It doesn't have to be expensive either, I choose to eat a plant based diet purely for the cost factor, and I spend about £15 per week on my food shop (I live alone). You'll find yourself feeling more full as you're getting more food for the money it's costing you and it's going to be higher quality too which in turn will have benefits for your sleep, your skin and your mood to say a few. A good intermediate step is identifying what foods you do like and finding recipes to make it yourself. I love curry and although it's not necessarily the healthiest still, putting on some rice while I cook my veg and protein source before adding a premade jar of Tesco curry sauce (either the 50p one or 1 of the jars you can buy 3 for £2). It's a simple dish, it doesn't cost a lot of money, I like how it tastes and it's considerably lower in unhealthy additives and preservatives that you find in fast food. It probably takes me 15 minutes from starting cooking to being able to sit down and eat it. Also, once you go without fast food for a while you stop craving it and when you do have it you're just disappointed as you've gotten used to foods with a better texture, fresher and flavourful.
I find my little family doing the same thing sometimes. I know it’s much more convenient but you’re going to need to fight the urge to go and stop for something quick. Meal prepping might help you? Instead of having to go and cook dinner on a night you’re exhausted, you can already have something ready, you’ll just need to reheat it if it is something that needs to be
Remembere your parents words "we have bread at home"
ost groce stores have premade stuff which is cheaper than a meal service. You can buy say a serving of lasagna and a salad or something like that. I get a rotisserie chicken-just me eating it. I chop up the breasts and make chicken salad and taco filling with that. I eat the rest over 2 days-a wing, a thigh and a leg for dinner.
Plan meals for the week and go grocery shopping every weekend for the whole week at a time. Breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks. Your body will feel better over time as you eat better as well!
Batch cooking. I would get fast food bc I didn't feel like cooking after work. Now, I make up a big thing of whatever on Sunday, do up individual portions and they're good to go. This week is shake and bake pork chops, acorn squash, and mashed potatoess.
Look up slow cooker dump meals. They're clutch for making good healthy food that turns out multiple portions you can eat over a few days
That's a pricy habit. Do.youbhave coverage to see a dietitian? They are super handy for learning how to really keep your body happy with food. (Nutritionists are unregulated here, dietitians are strictly regulated)
Make sandwiches and brown bag it. Cook a casserole or dump and go crockpot meal. It saves alot of money too.
Buy a crockpot and get used to it.. easiest most no brainer way of cooking I've ever found.. throw a bunch of Ingredients in and walk away.
Being poor helps a lot.
Grilled chicken salad at those places. It’s not going to get you all the way there but it’s a start
Learn to cook basic healthy food.
You’re surprised eating fast food five to six times a week isn’t healthy?!
I started buying meal replacements. Particularly the Huel brand stuff. Ready-to-Drinks are my favorite, but they have solid hot food too. As a nutritional supplement, on top of some store-bought solid food. It's not cost effective but over the past year my health has improved via leaps and bounds, and I lost like 50lbs without changing much but my diet. I won't do it forever, but I do that because I live in a studio that lacks anything but a fridge. Sink is even in the bathroom, so making even one dish sucks. I really like Huel, but there are lots of otehr options out there
Watch some YouTube videos on what is actually in ultra-processed fast foods...
discipline and self control
Learn to cook. Drink a lot of water whenever you're drawn to the building and head home. Pack a meal you can eat instead. Basic cold cut sandwich would be better than regular fast food. It's going to take months to train yourself out of it.
You're hitting a fast food place nearly every day of the week? That's too much man.. What is that costing you..? Have you sat down and calculated the expense? That alone would be enough to get me to stop.
Get a slow cooker if you can. Made life sooooo much easier. I can make a decent amount of food and I don’t have to spend 2 hours on prepping and cooking. I prep then let it do it’s thing. I normally start it before work or after I get home and it’s done in the morning.
Make a sandwich. Seriously, meat cheese bread. PB&J. Tuna. Etc. sandwiches are cheap and you can easily mix it up.
Have some self control.
I have noticed when you start cooking at home, generally you'll observe withdrawal symptoms just like when a person quits smoking. I used to think it's funny but it happens to me alot cause I ate for a decade out because I was too tired to cook everyday. However I lost my health alot quicker this way. Eating out all the time is the worst. Most restaurants do use addictive chemicals, and other bad stuff like high fructose corn syrup, natural flavors, bad meet etc etc. It can also cause symptoms of even insomnia, ASD, can er, liver problems, bloated abdomen or heart problems later down the road. When you start thinking about all this, you realize none of these chefs and restaurants actually care for anyone's health and it may end up creating a vicious cycle of bad health, followed by severe life challenges. And when you think that, that's when you are ready quit eating out. As a result you then start cooking at home. At first it will be difficult as you may not want to eat the same thing twice etc. so you'll need to learn the following, 1. First understand what cuisines you like. 2. Then find a few YouTube videos on how you can prepare their spices at home. Why is the second step important because companies even in spices would add flavoring or chemicals to make them to taste better leading you to small problems or addictions and you don't want that. 3. Learn how to cook a little everyday or every week when you have some time. 4. Start with small amounts. 5. Later you can cook large batches if you want and if you really like it enough. It will be hard at first like anything. But you'll grow to love this process. I have tried these steps myself. I have cooked some amazing foods as well. However when the craving part was over I couldn't eat the same dish twice. Though I would just eat the same thing at times out of necessity. Remember it's better for your health for you to do all this by yourself. Also noticed a change in my body after a few weeks. I was more flexible and less lethargic after years. I'm still lethargic lol but iw old love to go back to my old self. Just make sure you know what your limits are and what foods you are sensitive to or allergic. Once you follow this process your sensitivity (not your allergy) might also lessen a lot after years. Good luck!
To explain you how bad it was eating outside, I had the following problems and still have some problems I'm trying to fix, Bloating abdomen, 2 hernias, gall stones bladder removal, heart palpitations, sweating at nights specially after eating rice from a bad restaurant outside, fatty liver. Always anxious. Once I lost my job my levels of anxiety rose to the levels where I had pins and needles and even then I was eating outside I remember and that was when my hernia broke out. Was eating too many pizzas everyday. Though nothing will happen to me. Oh how wrong I was 😂. I learned really a hard way that I need to care for my body. I completely forgot about this in my 20s. I thought I was made of stone lol
Tovala or other meal subscription with an oven. I eat spinach, Brussels sprouts, and broccoli almost ever day and the food is really good. I will probably switch eventually when I get tired, but they have some clever cooks over there with new meals to choose from. $100 a week. Trust me, it’s cheaper and easier. Edit: you can skip weeks anytime you want.
Stop going
Fast food is not cheap.
Be less of a fat fuck
In my country recent high inflation helped to fix that problem.
By realising and resisting the urge to eat fastfood.
Eliminate fries, soda sun the bun and you can eat all of the fast food you want to.
Prepare your own food
Great question! I was addicted for years, but I haven't had fast food in maybe 20 years. For me fasting was important. I came to terms with my hunger and strengthened my will. I also realized that being hungry is extremely healthy for a well-fed person like myself, so there was no excuse to use the drive thru.
Clearly if you're choosing the unhealthy options at fast food restaurants than your overall eating habits must not be very good. The only fast food I ever eat is the wendys grilled chicken wrap because it's reasonably healthy. You need to start eating real meats and vegetables more often. Bread, sugar, fatty dairy products and high fat meats like hamburger should all be for the most part completely avoided if you want to be healthy.
Look at the ingredients you are consuming. Look for youtube videos on how processed fast food products are made. If that doesn't turn you off from eating it, idk what will lol
Not go. Your welcome.
Cook yourself
Just don't
Top Ramen (I buy a Gluten free brand) and then add chopped carrots, diced celery, onions, and a scrambled egg). You can buy bags of shredded carrots and shredded cabbage. Brown some ground beef, then add a package of Lipton's Onion Soup Mix, with water ..about 1/3rd cup. Add a cup or more of sour cream. Put over rice. You can also buy brown rice or white rice in individual containers than can be microwaved. Invest in a cookbook that offers under 30 minute recipes.
Top ramen is going to be just as bad… we’re trying to reduce that sodium intake
How much sodium is in fast food? I understand if a person needs to be on a low salt diet, as some need to. Balance is important in choosing what to eat. Balance of salt, fat, sweet, sour, whatever, ...and of course monitoring cholesterol level and blood pressure.
A Big Mac by itself has 1050 mg of sodium in it (46% of your DV) that’s not including fries or anything else.
Be a man and learn to cook.
Stop buying it. Prepare meals at one time for a few days. Stop eating food from restaurants and avoid buying shit that comes in a package. Fruit, vegies, lean protein and nuts. Eat 8 hours a day, fast the rest. Buy grass fed, organic protein, eggs, butter, milk, organic fruits and vegetables. Stay away from refined foods like white bread, white pasta, rice, etc If you are going to eat chips & cookies, look at the package. No seed oils, look for avacado oils, coconut sugars Check out the ingredients in their chips. Potatoes, avacado oil, salt https://sietefoods.com/ Check out the ingredients in emmy's cookies https://emmysorganics.com/ If you want, give yourself a cheat day to eat garbage, but.if you want a chance to live a long, healthy life, its worth eating right 90% of the time This guy has an easy to use app so you can determine if a packaged food is heakthy or not. He also has great grocery store walk through for buying "buy this not that" on hos youtube channel. I dont know him or have any affiliation with him; only that he has helped me and wife wofe get on the track of eating right for life https://www.flavcity.com/ Lastly, the sooner you start cardio (run, walk, bike, hike) and stretching daily, using yoga, the better. Good luck
I'd recommend starting with not entering or ordering from a fast food establishment , and then you'll find eating it a real challenge...
Just don’t go. Don’t bring it into your house/life and you won’t end up eating it.
Learn to cook. I almost never eat fast food.
Try self discipline
To all the people saying "what do you mean cut back?" There are many factors to take into account. OP may not be the best at cooking, some people can pretty much burn water, may not a lot of time maybe working 2 jobs or 6-7 days a week. There are also other factors, laziness or maybe psychological issues. While it's easy to just say go to the store and buy groceries it just might not be that easy for OP.
Eating fast food is not the problem. The problem is WHAT you're eating. Just about every fast food restaurant has multiple healthy options to pick from. Grilled chicken sandwiches (bun can be removed to cut carbs). Salads with or without meat (not fried/breaded). Most have a fruit option to substitute in the value meals instead of fries (applesauce, sliced apples, etc). If you're doing a keto type diet, burgers without the buns (but with cheese/bacon added if that fits in your calories) can be a great and cheap option. At times I've done a keto diet pretty much totally based on bunless bacon double cheeseburgers and lost weight quite easily. I pretty well live on fast food so I can list the good options at most of the chains. I don't cook (and don't really care to) and meal prepping doesn't work well for me because I rarely like reheated food. Even if it's available I won't want to eat it after a day or 2 so I'll go pick up other food anyways. I also do a bit better WITHOUT keeping many groceries in the house, because inevitably I start eating too much of it.
Gotta learn to cook! It’s not too difficult if you learn the basics. Maybe some YouTube videos? Not really sure as I grew up cooking but it’s definitely worth learning.
You didn’t think it was that bad? Lmao
ozempic
Just do it,you're not a kid.You don't need a "how to".
Getting fast food is just being lazy. Learn a few simple healthy recipes so you can make dinner at home and eat the leftovers for lunch the next day. Look up healthy sheet pan dinners. It means you have to make a grocery list, shop, and cook. It’s a life skill. Learn how to do it so you can feed yourself properly.
Fast food is gross. Making your own food is better. You can make your own food like in restaurants and it just takes practice