Can You Eat Healthy at a Fast Food Restaurant?

"Can You Eat Healthy at a Fast Food Restaurant?"," Due to hypertension your doctor has put you on a low sodium diet but your kids keep nagging you to take them to McDonalds. Do any of these scenarios sound familiar? The bottom line is can you eat at fast food restaurants and still adhere to whatever diet plan you have chosen to follow? You can definitely minimize the unhealthy impact of most fast food restaurants on your diet plan by choosing menu items that are better for you than most. Avoid foods with saturated fats and trans fatty acids, load up on fruits and vegetables, choose whole grain foods, choose foods low in cholesterol, don't drink your calories and watch your portions. Choose either a diet soda or, better yet, ask for water. There that wasn't hard and you can apply these two basics to any fast food, or for that matter any fine dining, restaurant. Almost every fast food restaurant has nutrition information available on their website. Click on the first item and it takes you to the nutritional information for Subway. The fat, fiber and sodium tips provide specific information on what sandwich to order and also what toppings to choose and which toppings to avoid - excellent information. Your second choice is review the menu while you're waiting in line and with the basic healthy eating tenants in mind make your best guess. Ouch! All is not lost, just adjust what you eat for the remainder of the day so you don't go over your daily caloric limit and burn the experience into your memory so you don't make the same mistake the next time. Most fast food restaurants will not make a fuss if your lunch companions are ordering from their menu. My final recommendation is to select a couple of healthy sides and don't select a burger or sandwich. Just be sure not to load up the potato with cheese, bacon or chilli and choose a fat free or low fat salad dressing for your side salad. With all this in mind you don't want to eat at fast food restaurants on a regular basis unless based on your research into the nutritional and caloric value you can stick with your diet. THIS IS WHAT YOU GET TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT