If you love food, you can’t resist takeout. The dishes aren’t the healthiest, although you can make fast food less fattening, they are packed with flavor. Plus, there’s something so satisfying about tucking into a meal you eat once a year. It’s like the eleven-month wait makes it taste better!

However, takeout is bad for you, and eating too much will lead to weight gain and heart problems. Thankfully, fakeouts are on hand to help. Prepared like the real thing, they include small tweaks that dramatically reduce the fat and calorie content. Here are four more reasons they’re worth switching to.

Fresh Ingredients

Sadly, the produce at McDonald’s and Burger King isn’t fresh, no matter how much they like to claim it is. So, while their burgers are amazing, there’s plenty of room for improvement. This is where fakeout comes into its own. By taking quality meat and turning it into a juicy patty, and grilling it on the BBQ with cheese and onions and your buns, you’ve got an exceptional meal. You can put some homemade wedges in the oven to bulk it out, too. Just by using fresh ingredients, you’ll consume fewer saturates, salt, and sugar.

Portion Control

Obviously, being in charge of the pass means you get to decide how much food you cook. If you’re trying to stay slim and keep the weight off, you can easily cut the portion sizes in half and still have a satisfying meal. Also, you can avoid ingredients takeout and fast food joints use regularly. For example, a teaspoon of olive oil contains 119 calories. 1.9 grams of which are saturated fats. Therefore, by swapping olive oil for rapeseed or sunflower oil, you can greatly reduce the unhealthy nature of takeout without harming the taste.

Accessibility

Burgers and pizzas might spring to mind, yet a fakeout dish can be anything. Pick a cuisine and you can transform it into a cheaper version that’s just as delicious. Sushi lovers can make this salmon roll, whereas fans of Middle Eastern food can blitz chickpeas, tahini, garlic, and oil to create the perfect hummus. Your brain will always think of the most common types of takeout; however, if you’re creative, you can try a host of cuisines that will all be as good as each other. The fact you can use Google to research what goes into it and how to make it means fakeout menus are more accessible than ever.

Sustainability

Not only will you throw less food away due to the fact you’re in control of the portion sizes, but fakeout meals are great for using leftovers that you’d usually avoid. All you have to do is throw veggies and meat into a slow cooker with Mexican spices, and you’ve got succulent tacos. The same goes for curries as they utilize anything you don’t want to eat. Sadly, 40 million tons of food are thrown away yearly, and takeout adds to the problem.

Are you ready to swap takeout for fakeout? What will you try first?