23 Ways to Keep Fast Food in Your Diet

Don't eliminate fast food, just make smart choices!

Wise Drive Through

If you're like most Americans, you frequent one of the country's more than 72,000 fast-food restaurants at least once a week. After all, industry data show that fast-food accounts for 86 percent of meals taken home from restaurants.

Stick to double cheeseburgers, supersize your fries and sodas, and add a few high-fat breakfast items a couple times a month, and you could see your waistline and cholesterol levels grow like weeds in a summer garden.

But something has been happening to fast-food restaurants. As Americans have become fatter and more concerned about what they eat, the McDonald's and Burger Kings of the world have taken notice. They've added salads that actually fill you up (sales of salads in fast-food restaurants were up 12 percent between 2002 and 2003), reduced serving sizes, and added more healthful options to their menus. Here's how to take advantage of it.

1. Go for the salad, minus the fried toppings. Although most fast-food restaurants offer decent-sized salads these days, if you top them with fried chicken, fried noodles, and the entire contents of the dressing packet, you will wind up with as much artery-clogging saturated fat and calories as if you'd had the double-cheese and fries. Instead, choose broiled or roasted chicken as your protein source, skip the croutons, and ask for the low-fat dressing -- then only use half.

2. Skip the cheese. Craving a hamburger? That's okay -- just get a plain hamburger without the cheese. For instance, at McDonald's, that saves you 50 calories, 40 of them from fat, and 2 grams of saturated fat.

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My cousin was behind the bakery's cash register one morning when a gunman burst in and demanded all the cash. As she nervously handed over the money, she noticed the rolls of coins in the back of the register. "Do you want the rolls too?" she asked. "No," said the robber, waving his gun. "Just the money."

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