Maintaining healthy cholesterol levels significantly decreases the risk of blood vessel and heart disease, cardiovascular disease and stroke, which makes up the second leading cause of all deaths for both men and women in Canada; cancer being the first.
Cholesterol is a fat vital to health, made by the liver and found in blood and in every cell in the body. Cholesterol is also found in certain foods, which are introduced into the body through eating; comprising of about 20% of the body’s total cholesterol. There are two main types of cholesterol; low-density lipoproteins (LDL) and high-density lipoproteins (HDL). LDL is considered the bad cholesterol because it can build up on artery walls, which leads to blood clots and blocked blood flow. HDL is the healthy cholesterol as it moves away from artery walls and can help carry away the LDL cholesterol.
Decades of research has found that some foods can raise LDL blood cholesterol levels; whereas, other types of foods can lower them. Foods that raise LDL levels the most are saturated and trans fats. These unhealthy fats are found in foods like red meat, shrimp, egg yolks, high-fat milk products, butter, vegetable oils, hydrogenated oil, deep-fried foods and processed foods. These are the foods to avoid if seeking healthy cholesterol levels!
Foods that lower LDL levels contain soluble fibre like oatmeal, kidney beans, brussels sprouts, apples, pears, prunes, avocados, psyllium and barley. Other foods that remove unhealthy LDL cholesterol from the blood contain polyunsaturated fatty acids like walnuts and almonds; and omega-3 fatty acids found in flax seed and fish like sardines, wild Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout. These are the foods to add to your diet, for achieving good cholesterol health!
To find out whether someone is at risk of high cholesterol, a family doctor can be contacted to have cholesterol-blood levels tested. Some conditions can put people at higher risk of unhealthy cholesterol than others. Risk factors include: smoking, excess drinking, lack of exercise, high-stress, excess weight, an unhealthy high-fat diet or have a family history of high cholesterol and heart disease.
A well-balanced diet of fresh whole foods and keeping an active lifestyle will help in maintaining healthy cholesterol levels and preventing heart disease. Canada’s Food Guide offers a good model for appropriate meal portion sizes and maintaining a balanced diet. There are several trusted food guides that can help in the development of balanced diets and meal plans.
Choosing fresh colourful fruits and vegetables, whole grains and lean white meat will provide the body with the vitamins, minerals, nutrients, protein and dietary fibre it needs to stay healthy. Carrot and celery sticks, fresh fruit, nuts and seeds are good to provide for healthy snacking.
Eliminating processed and fast foods is essential as they often offer little nutrition and plenty of saturated and trans fats, salt, refined sugars and flours and artificial ingredients. Reducing saturated fat can further be accomplished by strictly reducing consumption of red meat and fatty-animal products like butter and cream.
Steam, bake and pan-frying foods on low heat instead of deep-frying and boiling is best to preserve the nutrition in the food. Boiling leaches the goodness from food and deep-frying saturates foods in oil, which can become toxic if heated past its burning point causing food to become carcinogenic (cancerous).
According to leading health professionals, reducing stress or practicing stress reducing techniques like meditation, breathing exercises or tai-chi can also offer a significant positive impact to health. As well, moderate exercise daily of 30 to 60 minutes can cut the risk of heart disease and stroke in half. Wishing you sucess on your journey towards living a long healthy life.
Written by: J. Marshall from http://nutritionalhealingrecipes.com