Eating one or more of the same meals every day, a practice often called \u201cfood monotony,\u201d can be an efficient way to simplify your routine, manage your weight and eliminate the \u201cdecision fatigue\u201d that can result from having to plan menus, shop and cook.<\/p>\n
But there can also be a downside, including a risk of nutritional deficiencies if your daily meals consist mostly of ultraprocessed foods or high fat, salty or sugary snacks, instead of healthy, wholesome foods, nutrition experts say.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can think of worse things than eating the same meal over and over again, if it\u2019s balanced and healthy,\u201d said Marion Nestle, a professor emerita of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University.<\/p>\n
By \u201cbalance,\u201d nutrition experts mean meals that include a protein, a carbohydrate and a healthy fat, making them \u201cnutrient dense,\u201d said Julia Zumpano, a registered dietitian at the Cleveland Clinic.<\/p>\n
For example, a daily breakfast of yogurt or oatmeal with fresh fruit is healthier than bacon, eggs and hash browns, said Dr. Donald Hensrud, an associate professor of nutrition and preventive medicine at the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. And a lunchtime salad is better than eating a ham sandwich on white bread.<\/p>\n
For dinner, grilled chicken or fish every night with vegetables and brown rice beats a burger and fries, Hensrud said.<\/p>\n
Why would someone eat the same foods every day? Sometimes, it\u2019s simply because they prefer those foods. \u201cIt may be nothing more complicated than that,\u201d Nestle said.<\/p>\n
Others use repetitive eating as a way to lose or control weight. One recent study by Drexel University researchers found that adults who ate the same meals every day lost more weight over 12 weeks than those who followed a more varied diet.<\/p>\n
Decision fatigue is another factor, \u201cespecially if you are planning meals for others,\u201d Zumpano said.<\/p>\n
Variety to your meal<\/p>\n
To keep your diet healthy, some experts recommend that you add a little variety to your meal. \u201cIf you have blueberries in your yogurt one morning, have strawberries or a banana the next, or mix in some oats or nuts,\u201d Hensrud said.<\/p>\n
Zumpano added that if you always have a sandwich for lunch \u201cyou can build off that concept but still add variety.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHave a peanut butter and jelly sandwich one day and grilled cheese or turkey the next day,\u201d she said. But don\u2019t eat too much of a single food, which could lead to excessive exposure to harmful substances, like mercury in fish, or to nutrients considered unhealthy in large amounts.<\/p>\n
A 2022 study suggested that breakfast is the meal people are most likely to repeat. It tends to be more functional or utilitarian than social, in part because people often need to get to work or school, and it\u2019s easy to eat the same breakfast every day, said Carey Morewedge, a professor of marketing at Boston University and one of the study\u2019s authors.<\/p>\n
Morewedge said that his breakfast \u2013 a smoothie of vanilla protein powder, a banana, spinach and avocado \u2013 had been the same for several years.<\/p>\n
Nestle says she also eats the same breakfast every morning: a bowl of shredded wheat, a teaspoon of sugar and skim milk, and blueberries or strawberries that she grows on her terrace. \u201cIt\u2019s simple,\u201d she said. \u201cI like the texture. It\u2019s crunchy. And it\u2019s a great way to start the day.\u201d \u2013 \u00a92026 The New York Times Company<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eating one or more of the same meals every day, a practice often called \u201cfood monotony,\u201d can be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783075,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[1991,102,223501,6636,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-783074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nutrition","tag-food","tag-health","tag-lifestyle-food","tag-nutrition","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}