Being at a fast food joint might be a teen's privilege because it is the age when he starts to hang out with his friends and get initiated into the pizza-burger circuit. His parents might have equal rights to be inside a fast food joint because they are hard pressed for time, and if they want to grab a bite during the lunch recess or on their way back home from office, a fast food eatery might be the best refuge. And when everyone in the family is having their share of pizzas and chips and fries and coke, how can they deny it to the kid brother? So he too gets his fill. In short, everybody gets his share of fast food, but hardly ever its alternative, which is home cooking.

However, things are a bit on the reverse gear these days, and that is a welcome trend. Both the Internet and the print media are doing yeoman service here, because they offer an endless variety of free recipes and easy recipes. All these can help in improving the quality and variety of home cooking, which will definitely give a fillip to de-addicting people from fast food dependency. And fast food addicts would also do well to calculate the money that they are spending on these fast food goodies, which also go by the name junk food. With half the money that is spent on a junk food meal, people can have healthy and fresh home cooked vegetarian food. Interest in vegetarian delicacies is also a current trend, and is amply aided by the vegetarian recipes that are doing the rounds on the Internet these days.

Whether you want to eat to live, or live to eat, recipes could be an ideal answer to both. There are plenty of veg recipes that are remarkably fat free and have a high content of vitamins and minerals that are required by the body. These veg recipes are the perfect antidote to fast food, which drip with fat and aid obesity. However, there are plenty of non-vegetarian home cooking recipes also, that have low calorie value and high nutritive value and are easy to prepare. Some of these can be as tantalizingly attractive as fast food but will not do half the harm that fast food does. These provide step-by-step guidelines for preparation, including directions for the right way of garnishing.

Vegan recipes appeal to different people for different reasons. There are animal rights activists who swear by vegetarian food and so are always searching for new veg recipes. Then there are people who avoid eating non-vegetarian food for health reasons. Whether you are vegetarian or non-vegetarian, it is better to master a few veg recipes, because a certain amount vegetables have to be part of a person's daily diet. Having said that, chicken and mutton are kings of the cooking pot and vegetables can never completely replace them. There are elaborate recipes for preparing meat and fish, and some of the meat preparations are perfect home cooking recipes, even if they are a bit time consuming. No harm in trying out a couple of elaborate ones on festival days and holidays and you can ask the rest of the family also to join in the efforts. When you ask them to be a part of your cooking ventures, whether these dishes are based on easy recipes, or elaborate ones, you will be giving them the first lessons in home cooking and in the importance of keeping off fast foods.