Health Article- Fast Food

Sky (The French Quarter)

Fast Food Fix

Devin Alexander

January 2007

Americans are known to be "the fast-food eaters". An average American spends more money on fast-food than on college, computers and software, new cars, books, movies, magazines, newspapers, videos, and music all put together! Chef Devin Alexander claims it IS possible to have fast-food tasting meals but with less calories and fat! People who tried her recipes claimed it looked and tasted just like it would've if it really came from a fast-food restaurant!

Alexander says it all started when she began to diet. Just by not eating fast-food, she lost 25 pounds. She began an exercise plan and lost 30 more pounds. She only exercises a half hour five times a week. She didn't like not being able to eat her favorite foods, and she was often cranky. So, she created a recipe book of how to make low-fat fast-food. She explains some of the reasons why fast-food has so much fat- a lot of fast-food restaurants use lard or grease on the buns. Although when the sandwich is made, you can't even taste the grease with so many flavors are put together with it. It adds a lot of calories. In one of her biggest recipe transformations, she took off 729 calories and 75 grams of fat off the original 1,173 calorie and 93 grams of fat Steak Ð''n Frisco Melt. Apparently the oil on the buns were responsible for 30 grams of fat! She also made Subway's Meatball Marinara meatballs larger and cut off 200 calories and 14 grams of fat! All of Alexander's recipes for healthier good-tasting diets recommend the leanest cuts and "faux-frying". But her servings are never smaller than the real thing; sometimes, they're even larger! Sometimes