Constant routine fatty lunches including cheeseburgers and fries may shorten your life, while a dinner plate loaded with veggies may have the opposite effect.

Researchers discovered that U.S. individuals who preferred a “Western” lunch — high in cheese, processed meat, refined grains, fat, and sugar, were at a high risk of death from heart disease.

The same was true for persons who liked potato chips and other “starchy” snacks in between meals.

People who ate a lot of veggies — especially at dinnertime — were on the other end of the range. They were nearly one-third less likely to die during the trial period than persons who rarely ate vegetables on their dinner plates.

The findings, according to study author Wei Wei and colleagues from Harbin Medical University in China, point to the potential importance of timing in eating choices.

Other experts emphasized the importance of overall diet quality.

“That is one of the findings of this study,” according to Lauri Wright, an assistant professor of nutrition and dietetics at the University of North Florida. “It still comes back to diet quality.”

The fact that unhealthy ‘fatty lunches’ were linked to negative outcomes does not imply that those meals are safe to eat at dinner, according to Wright, who is also a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

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