Breaking Up is Hard To Do (Bye Jack.)

My mantra (or at least one of them) should be : Stay away from Jack. Not all Jacks, mind you. Just the ones that look like clowns and have a pointy hat. We are a vegetarian family, and while you might think that would in itself keep us from over-indulging in fast food, sadly it does not.

I often find myself visiting Jack and ordering from the friendly guy those yummy Breakfast Jacks. Minus the meat. And Taco Bell lures me in with their bean burritos. And have I mentioned I love french fries. Almost as much as onion rings?

We are going to stop those fast food habits though. Seriously. This will be the year (because I know I cannot hope to get Eva Longoria's butt if I am stuffing nachos in my mouth.) because  I want my family to eat healthier and smarter. I want my kids to have clean clear arteries and healthy hearts. That goes for me and the hubbs too (though it may be too late for us. Thanks, Jack.)

So I need to break up with Jack, and hook up with my kitchen again. Yep, I need to start planning out some meals. If I don't plan, I won't cook. If I don't cook, we get hungry. If we get hungry, we look for the quickest way to satisfy that hunger. We go visit our friend named Jack. Or a close relative of his, like Ronald. I need healthy easy to make recipes. And I need them pronto.

Oh yeah, before I forget. Here is a list of the worst of the worst when it comes to fast food per The Cancer Project, a nonprofit cancer prevention organization that is linked with the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine--just in case you want to go cold turkey on Jack with me--. The organization put their dietitians to work to determine what meals at the five biggest fast food chains are the worst offenders for our health, measuring the sodium, fat, and fiber content. Here are the five meals they deemed the worst of the fast and the cheap:

1.  Jack in the Box's junior bacon cheeseburger (23 grams of fat, including 8 grams of saturated fat, 55 milligrams of cholesterol, 860 milligrams of sodium, 1 gram of fiber) costs $1 and is the organization's top pick for unhealthy fast food.

2. Taco Bell cheesy double beef burrito (460 calories, 20 grams of fat, and 1,620 milligrams of sodium) is 89 cents.

3. Burger King breakfast sausage biscuit (27 grams of fat, including 15 grams of saturated fat, and more than 1,000 milligrams of sodium) is available for one dollar.

4. McDonald’s McDouble (19 grams of fat and 65 milligrams of cholesterol) costs the consumer $1.

5. Wendy’s junior bacon cheeseburger (310 calories and 16 grams of fat) is the most expensive and the best of the worst, ringing in at $1.53.

I guess I should break-up with the pizza delivery boy too. Sigh.