‘Fakeaway’: How to make your favourite fast food at home for cheap

This former paramedic with a love of Big Macs and Zambreros is cooking up a social media storm with her nutritious take on fast food favourites.

A South Australian paramedic-turned-nutrition influencer has found social media fame sharing ‘fakeaway’ recipes – cutting the cost and the calories from fast food favourites.

Lucinda Porcelli gave up her paramedic career to help those who want have their cake, eat it too and save money.

She’s known as CindaFit online and her 30,000 followers go wild for ‘fakeaway’ recipes – healthier and cost-friendly alternatives for everything from burritos and burgers to chocolate bars.

Each recipe is taste-tested to get the flavour as close to the real deal as possible and takes into account the cost of every ingredient to help cut costs.

“With these fakeaways, people love them, kids love them, families love them and they are a nutritional option on the everyday favourites,” Ms Porcelli said.

“For say the price of $20 is getting all the ingredients that you might have spent on your burrito, you could make five, and that’s going to feed the whole family.

“What I’ve really tried to do with my nutrition is that I’ve made it so easy, that it’s too easy not to use.”

Lucinda Porcelli is known for her 'fakeaway' recipes. Picture: Louise Agnew

Lucinda Porcelli's fakeaway McChicken: Picture: Supplied

The Mount Gambier woman has always had a passion for keeping fit and staying healthy.

Ms Porcelli studied paramedics straight out high school but found that career path wasn’t for her.

“I really did aspire to be like my mum who is a nurse practitioner and she manages the emergency ward, so it was like following in her footsteps,” she said.

“I would spend most of my time off with paramedics cooking and baking and learning about nutrition … and I guess that’s when I decided to make that merge and create my business to something I enjoyed doing.”

Inspired by her Italian heritage and passion for healthy food, Ms Porcelli went back to university to study sports nutrition and launched CindaFit Nutrition, taking on clients while still working as a paramedic.

On her mission to transform unhealthy and high calorie meals into healthier options that are easy and cost-effective, she published a book full of ‘fakeaway’ recipes last year.

“What I taught was a lifestyle, we can eat pasta, we can eat takeaways, we can eat these meals as long as we’ve still got that moderation.” she said.

“I tried to do half business and half paramedics, but it got too much, my business kept growing.”