Good nutrition is an important part of cardiovascular health. Cholesterol-lowering foods and cleansing vessels surround us in everyday life.
To effectively fight against hypercholesterolemia, it is necessary to adopt a list of the most suitable foods for it. This will help fight high cholesterol in women and men if the problem already exists or help prevent them.
Cholesterol-lowering Foods: Common Features
To understand which foods lower blood cholesterol, you need to determine the volume and quality of the fats they contain.
It is recommended to eat only products that will allow:
- Avoid trans fats – dangerous substances that are found in large quantities in fast food, fried foods;
- Maintain a balance when the caloric content of fat consumed does not exceed 30-35% of the total calories per day. Doctors note that for women the daily intake does not exceed 50–75 grams, for men – 70–100 grams;
- Replace fatty meat, whole milk products (fatty cottage cheese, cheese, butter, etc.) with lighter food;
- Get polyunsaturated fats, which are in fish, vegetable oil, nuts.
It is important that all foods that increase cholesterol are either completely eliminated from the diet, or consumed in extreme cases (when there is no other way out). Better to snack on nuts or fruits, eat foods rich in fiber.
But cholesterol-lowering foods are best excluded from the diet (large amounts of sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oils, semi-finished products with an unknown content, food made from refined flour, alcohol and caffeine.
The last two components can not be completely excluded from the diet, but only limit their consumption.
Healthy Recipes
– Tilapia Fillet
An excellent dish can be made from tilapia fillets.
You will need to take 500 g of fish and cut it into convenient pieces. Season with salt and pepper, leave to marinate. Chop the onion, bell pepper, and courgette into bars. Grease a baking dish with sunflower oil. Place ready-made tilapia pieces and cover with vegetables on top. Send to the oven at 180-200 degrees for half an hour.
– Precious and Tasty Berries
These are other cholesterol-lowering foods. Almost all berries can be beneficial, but not everyone can lower cholesterol levels.
From this point of view, black chokeberry and grapes, cranberries and blackberries, lingonberries and blueberries.
Many berries that grow in swamps have such beneficial properties. Blueberries can be safely included in this category.
If there are not enough bog and forest berries, they can always be replaced by garden ones.
Having learned which foods lower blood cholesterol, you can safely fill your diet with them – just 150 grams of berries per day are enough to normalize metabolism.
Strawberries and raspberries are beneficial. The guarantor is considered tasty and healthy. If the use of berries is impossible, it is suggested to use juices, fruit drinks, mashed potatoes.
– Dairy Group
This category has its own “pests” that only increase the appearance of bad lipids. These include cheese, butter, cream. They can be consumed in small amounts.
You can find out which foods lower cholesterol from the list provided:
Kefir and yogurts – these are the products that are worth the close attention of buyers. Low-fat cottage cheese can also be classified as a healthy category. Milk can also be used for food (fatty milk is suggested to be diluted with water).
It is not worth giving up completely from butter and cheese, as well as from sour cream or cottage cheese. It is enough to use it with green tea, juices, whole grain crisps).
– White Cabbage
This is a simple and affordable product for everyone, which is always on the shelves and available to customers. It is cabbage that leads among all vegetables for its ability to quickly remove fats from the body.
It is recommended to eat not only fresh cabbage. It can be pickled, stewed, salted, boiled.
Important! to quickly reduce the level of bad lipids, it is enough to consume 100 grams of cabbage daily. Within a month, the blood picture will improve significantly. During this time, you can also lose 2-3 kg without any diet.
– Condiments
They are highly valued all over the world for their ability to change, improve the taste of a dish, make it special and unforgettable. Nutritionists recommend including seasonings in the diet of those who seek to normalize metabolic processes, improve their health, and reduce the level of bad cholesterol in the blood.
Among the leaders in seasoning are turmeric and ginger, dill, cumin. Basil, marjoram can also be used to prepare the dish. The habit of adding bay leaves to food is also not superfluous. This seasoning can make the dish aromatic, and at the same time improve your health.
Ginger
Basil Bay Leaf
Dill
– Oat flakes
For some (not all) they are recommended for breakfast. It is oatmeal that can raise the acidity level. They contain beta-gluconate, which nutritionists call a unique natural trap. It is she who captures high-density lipids, and then quickly removes them from the body. The flakes have enough fiber.
To diversify the menu, you can replace oatmeal with whole grain bread, bran.
Interesting! Only 3 grams of soluble fiber can lower blood cholesterol levels. However, you need to use it daily for such nutrition to give results.
– Legumes
A valuable and nutritious product that allows you to quickly feel full. But the main work begins in the intestines.
Beans and peas, lentils, and beans are becoming real suppliers of fiber. It fills the intestines, preventing pathogenic microflora from multiplying, and also captures and removes toxins from the body. Most importantly, it interferes with the absorption of trans fats and bad cholesterol.
Numerous cuisines around the world offer a variety of legumes. It can be cereals, but most often lentils, beans, and peas become the main ingredient in soups.
Kombucha (tea mushroom)
A unique product, on the basis of which compatriots prepare a soft drink in the summer – kvass. It is recommended to consume it on an empty stomach, and to do it in the morning shortly before the main meal.
Such cold drinks saturate the body with B vitamins, substances, and enzymes for better metabolism.
An additional advantage of ready-made drinks based on kombucha is the ability of the constituent substances to remove toxins, poisons, and trans fats from the body.
To make the drink tasty, aromatic, tonic, it is recommended to lay not only kombucha but also current and raspberry leaves for the sourdough. Linden color, birch leaves can also be used as natural flavoring agents.
– Garlic
Numerous studies of scientists confirm the benefits of a valuable product. It is he who allows you to lower cholesterol and at the same time cleanse the body of pathogenic microflora. It is a natural and inexpensive antioxidant that acts as an anti-inflammatory and antifungal agent.
The phytoncides included in the composition allow to normalize metabolic processes, reduce blood cholesterol levels.
The product can be used both raw and fermented, canned, boiled. It should be used with caution for people with high blood pressure, gastrointestinal diseases.
To reduce the risk of acid levels, you should eat no more than a clove of garlic with a meal. This supplement helps to normalize lipid levels.
– Rice red
Risk red should be used, it can also be replaced with black. These are healthy foods that were often used as natural dyes in ancient times. The value of such food is that it also has anti-inflammatory properties.
Attention! The product should be consumed in small quantities. Recent studies have shown that monacolin K is high in red fermented rice.This is a natural statin and can lower trigleceride levels.