Weaning fast food from the diet does not have to be a process of denial. Here are suggestions which worked with my family several years ago. Now we do not even like the taste of most fast food (pizza excepted). We are also paying less than half the price for food.

Around 7 or 8 years ago I found a website that claimed their recipes were clones of the major restaurants and fast food joints. Now there are quite a few of these websites and thousands of cloned recipes that even include old time restaurants which have been out of business for many years.

I printed out some of the recipes and decided to try them. I chose recipes of the places where we were spending our money: Taco Bell, McDonalds, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, Miami Subs, Pollo Tropical, Long John Silvers, and several others. We had gotten in the habit of my cooking Monday through Thursday and eating fast food on the other days because I was so exhausted. I did not yet know that I had developed heart disease because we did not have health insurance so I never went to the doctor. I simply felt exhausted after coming home from work every day and "took weekends off" from standing up cooking. However, the expense of eating out prevented us from saving money so things needed to change.

Our first home-cooked fast food night was taco night. Our daughter invited a few girlfriends over for dinner and the girls actually chopped veggies and cooked dinner. They had a blast with a lot of laughter coming from the kitchen. They made a baked layered taco casserole and a soft-crunchy taco supreme combo. There were no leftovers. Taco night was a hit!

The next night we tried double cheeseburgers, french fries, and homemade stewed apples instead of the apple pie. Another hit. The recipes actually tasted better than the fast food because I was able to control the salt and buy a good quality of meat.

We continued with trying different recipes and a nice thing happened unexpectedly. We had previously been in the "200 club" as far as our weight but now it was slowly coming off. After 3 or 4 months we were all down in the 170's. One thing that we did stop completely was drinking soda. We switched to home brewed iced tea, water with a squirt of lemon and lime, homemade lemonade, and kool-aid packets to make slushies.

We found that the amount of sugar in our diet did not seem to make a difference. The difference seemed to be in the amount of salt in the food and the amount of high fructose corn syrup in the soda.

The only flop that we had was pizza. We have tried about 15 - 20 times over the years but could never get a decent thin crust. We don't like the doughy thick crust pizzas and I just haven't been able to figure out the secret to a thin crust.

Preparing a similar tasting but healthier menu at home is a good way to start weaning fast food from the diet. And, if your kids are teenagers who are familiar with the basics of cooking, they might enjoy preparing the "fast food" with their friends. It's a fun way to start the weaning process.