BATON ROUGE — Eating habits play a significant role in your health. So how much and what kinds of foods do you eat in a week? Healthcare professionals often ask these questions during an exam, which can sometimes be tedious.

"Very extensive surveys of 110 questions or 120 questions pretty much asking you about every single food you had,” Francisco Lopez-Jimenez, a cardiovascular medicine doctor at the Mayo Clinic, said.

The Mayo Clinic simplified the process by creating the Mini-EAT assessment tool. It consists of nine dietary-specific questions and takes about two minutes to complete.

"When the person is telling you that he's eating fruits and vegetables every day and avoiding fast food, you know just by having those responses that that person very likely is doing the right thing," Lopez-Jimenez said.

Being mindful of your diet could help prevent heart disease and high blood pressure.

"The blood pressure might be affected by the quality of our foods, our cholesterol that we know leads to heart disease,” Lopez-Jimenez said.

With the Mini-EAT tool, healthcare professionals will be able to give patients more accurate, individualized information so they can make healthier nutritional choices.