The Mayo Clinic, headquartered in Rochester, Minnesota, is regarded as one of the world’s greatest hospitals, earning the number one position in the 2016-2017 U.S. News & World Report list of ‘Best Hospitals’.
The clinic is world famous for its patient care, research and education. In 2015, the flagship clinic and its campuses and health system facilities provided treatment and care for over 1.3 million patients. The organization spends over $660 million dollars a year on research.
The Clinic’s educational initiatives include the Mayo Medical School and the Mayo Graduate School.
But, beyond the formal institutions, the Clinic also has a reputation as a reliable source of information for a variety of health issues from dealing with aging to sports medicine.
A large part of their outreach educational efforts are focused on preventative treatments and practices. And encouraging healthier diets is one of the biggest initiatives due to the major role it plays in our overall health and well being.
Why We Don’t Eat a Healthier Diet
One of the biggest reasons that many of us don’t eat as healthily as we should is lack of time (or that’s at least what we tell ourselves). Always in a rush, we don’t have time for a homemade meal and we end up dropping into the nearest fast food restaurant for a ‘refueling’ pit stop.
But that drive for convenience forces us to give up healthy food for the sake of time. A large number of fast food restaurant menu items are not our healthiest food choices for many reasons.
- Large portion sizes
- Higher fat content
- High sugar content
- High salt content
- Excess calories
It all conspires to make the regular consumption of fast food a serious contributor to weight gain and other health problems.
Seeing an opportunity to help everyone manage their weight and improve their health, the Mayo Clinic recently published a series of tips to make healthier eating more convenient and therefore help it compete with the time factor of fast food. The basic direction of many of the tips is to get you to eat at home more often, including fresh ingredients and whole foods. They also encourage you to avoid processed foods. It all will hopefully combine to reduce your dependency on fast foods and increase the chances of reaching your weight loss goals.
1. Have a Fast Breakfast or Make it To-Go
Fast food breakfasts, including muffins and breakfast sandwiches, are among the worst calorie culprits around. The Mayo Clinic suggests making breakfast not only the first meal of the day, but the first meal you commit to making at home.
To avoid the morning rush in the kitchen, layout a bowl and spoon for a quick hit of whole gain cereal, or slap some peanut butter on a slice of whole grain toast. If you simply can’t eat at home, they suggest grabbing a banana and some yogurt for the road.
2. Make Lunch Something You Look Forward To
The food you make at home has to compare with the pumped up flavours of fast food. The Clinic’s suggestions are to cook an extra piece of chicken when preparing dinner, then chop it up and toss it in with strawberries, pecans and spinach for a delicious lunch.
3. Healthy Snacks
Your snack habits can ruin a lot of your otherwise healthy eating. Think along the lines of whole foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables. To speed up snack preparation times, cut up fruits and vegetables as soon as you bring them home form the store and put them into individual containers that you can grab when you head out.
4. Simplify Dinner
As the big meal of the day, we feel we have to make big preparations for dinner, but the Clinic suggests it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead of a massive effort, which can make a visit to the nearest at food joint seem quite inviting, make simpler meals. The Clinic points out that, in the same time it would take you to go to the fast food place, you could go to your grocery store and get some salmon, a whole wheat baguette and the veggies for a Greek salad. Toss those together at home and serve with the salmon on the baguette.
Healthier eating helps to solve more than your weight problem. It also gives you the nutrition levels you need to avoid illnesses and injuries. The nutrition consultants at your local Herbal One Centre would be happy to devise a healthy eating plan just for you.