Nutrition 101

Q: What Can I Eat to Help Lower my Blood Cholesterol?

August 23, 2012

by Natalia Hancock, Senior Culinary Nutritionist

Tweet

Culinary Nutritionist Natalia Hancock discusses how to maintain a healthy level of blood cholesterol and reduce cholesterol intake.

Having high cholesterol increases the risk of heart disease and heart attacks, and can be controlled by medications or by a change in lifestyle. Your diet, in addition to exercise, can play a major role in maintaining healthy blood cholesterol levels. Increasing your intake of cholesterol-lowering foods while limiting those foods that negatively impact blood cholesterol levels are measures you can take to do this.

Soluble fiber can help reduce your low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or “bad cholesterol” by slowing down the absorption rate of cholesterol in your body. Foods like apples, prunes, kidney beans or steel-cut oatmeal are great sources of soluble fiber.

Eating fish two or three times a week can lower LDL in two ways: by replacing meat, which has LDL-boosting saturated fats, and by delivering LDL-lowering omega-3 fats. Fish high in Omega 3s are: salmon, anchovies, bluefin tuna, sardines and trout.

Nuts are also recommended to improve heart health as they are high in polyunsaturated fats. The FDA suggests that consuming a handful of nuts a day may help reduce the risk of heart disease. You can make healthy choices by choosing nuts that haven’t been coated with sugar, honey or salt.

Avoid trans-fats, which are found in many processed foods and may appear on an ingredient list as either “hydrogenated” or “partially hydrogenated oil”. I would advise limiting your intake of all saturated fats, which can be found in cream, cheese, butter, red meat, palm and coconut oils. And make sure you're cooking with plant-based oils like olive oil rather than butter and cream!

For more information on healthy eating and nutritional advice, visit our Nutrition 101 blog.

nutrition advice, nutrition facts, cholesterol

Latest Posts Subscribe to the SPE RSS feed