Is fast food making you slow?

It's been a long day. You`ve had back to back meetings. You`re running late and you`re stuck in traffic. You`re starving. At this point, the idea of preparing dinner is about as exciting as heading off for a 10km run. You decide to take the main road home and pick up dinner from one of the many fast food take away outlets that you'll drive past...

Sound familiar?

Fast food has unfortunately become an integral part of our time-strapped lifestyles. It's cheap, convenient, predictable and…surprise, fast!

Yet fast food can be food terrorism in little cardboard boxes. It’s packed with artery-clogging, heart-attack-causing amounts of kilojoules (kJ), fat and sodium.

And it’s not just the quality but the quantity we eat when eating fast food. The fact is that your fat intake for one fast food meal alone - whatever it is - will usually far exceed your fat allowance for an entire day!

In today’s ‘more is better’ consumer culture, we’re constantly encouraged to supersize. Sure, you may be getting value for money. But you’ll be getting value for waistline as well.

Check this out … 1 slice of margarita pizza contains 616 kJ and 1 teaspoon of fat. Upsize that to a triple decker pizza and one slice now contains 1738 kJ and 3 teaspoons of fat. So one slice of the latter is what an entire light meal should provide!

It’s all about moderation…having the occasional fast food type meal is okay. It’s when you're on a first name basis with the local drive through checkout lady that it’s time to get back to those wholesome, home-cooked meals.