What you eat directly affects productivity – here’s how to make healthier choices

When life gets busy, a healthy diet is often the first thing to go.

While many associate healthy eating only with weight loss, it also has strong links to improved work performance, creativity and productivity.

In a study of almost 20,000 employees, scientists at Brigham Young University in Utah discovered that those with unhealthy diets were 66% more likely to report a productivity loss than those who chose a healthy food option.

Poor eating choices can also lead to fatigue, increased stress and depression, poor mental health, irritability, and decreased energy.

This doesn’t mean you have to restrict your diet to salads and green juices though (there are some great, free keto recipes here). Just a few simple changes can make a huge difference to your energy levels, mental clarity and overall health.

Simple changes to improve your overall health

Never skip breakfast
Eat more fresh produce
Substitute whole grains for refined grains
Limit fried high-fat foods
Avoid labelled ‘diet’ food
Ditch sugary soft drinks
Watch your portion sizes
Limit snacking in between meals
Drink 8 glasses of water every day

Try one of these healthy food delivery services

Hello Fresh

Inside each Hello Fresh box, you'll receive easy-to-follow recipes that can be prepared in as little as 15 minutes using fresh, seasonal and quality ingredients. Choose from the Classic, Veggie or Family plan, starting from just A$7.49/serve. Available throughout the US, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Australia, Austria, Switzerland, Canada and New Zealand.

Green Chef

Green Chef is the first-ever USDA-certified-organic meal kit—free of synthetic pesticides, growth hormones, antibiotics, and GMOs. You can order vegan, keto, omnivore, vegetarian, omnivore, pescatarian, and paleo meals, which are updated weekly. Ingredients come packaged, labelled, and colour-coded for organised cooking, and they all take 30 minutes or less to prepare. Two-person plans, with three meals per week, start at US$63. Green Chef delivers almost everywhere in the continental United States.

Allplants

Entirely plant-based, Allplants aims to ease up the perceived stress of vegan diets with its chef-made frozen meals, which are much more exciting and innovative than what you’d otherwise cook at home. All production is sustainable, packaging is recyclable, compostable or reusable and it even works with a carbon-neutral delivery partner, which delivers across the UK. Six meals for one person will set you back £40.50 per box or £6.75 per serving.

Eat Fit Food

To get you back on track with ease, the team at Eat Fit Food have created a rotation of more than 600 fresh, nutritious and convenient dietician-approved meals that can be delivered direct to your door.

Eat Fit Food followers include the likes of Hugh Jackman, Miranda Kerr, Rachael Finch and Michael Klim. Even celebrity health guru Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP listed the brand as one of its favourite home-delivery services.

Before eating ‘clean’ was the in thing, Bianca Monley blazed the health-conscious trail with her luxury wholefood delivery service. In 2002, 22-year-old Monley started Eat Fit Food as a one-woman show out of the cramped apartment kitchen in Bondi. Although it took her 10 years to turn a profit, Monley says she never lost faith and never took the focus off of her business.

"Without a doubt, my passion and love for what I do was the main driving force behind every up and down along the way. I am so grateful to have created such a positive product that can actually make a difference," Monley told Collective Hub.

A true pioneer in the healthy meal delivery market, Monley and her team of chefs, nutritionists and health experts have created a variety of programs, including five-, 10- and 20-day all-inclusive cleanses, lean and clean plans, individual meal packs and catering packages.

These portion and calorie-controlled meals are a far cry from their frozen counterparts. Most ingredients are locally and ethically sourced, and dishes contain no nasty additives or refined sugars.

With gluten-free, dairy-free, vegetarian, vegan and low carb options, the range of meal plans are sure to please the pickiest of eaters. If you know you’re headed into a busy week and don’t want to be tempted by easy greasy take out, or if you just need a break from tedious grocery shopping and meal prepping, then Eat Fit Food could be the perfect solution. Prices for home delivery start from A$120 per week.

While the company only caters to those living in the inner suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne, Monley says plans for a national expansion are now underway, as well as a range of healthy vending machines stocking up to 100 meals in each. In fact, she plans to invest more than A$1 million to make these machines a reality – with each individually vacuum-sealed meal costing just A$10.

"This is all about providing a healthy option to a broader range of customers," Monley told The Australian Financial Review. "We want them in high-traffic areas where people have minimal food options, and end up having chocolate bars and Cokes all day because they’re too busy to leave the office."