Heart Healthy Recipes – Part 2

Next try another substitution. After dinner each night eat a serving of seasonal fruit such as pineapple, berries, cherries, melons, or watermelon. The additional natural sugar will stave off your cravings for ice cream, candy and chocolate while delivering a high vitamin packed punch to your diet. After you have decreased your sugar, changed your oils and increased your fruits, you begin to eat a salad with each dinner or lunch. This will increase the amount of green leafy vegetables you eat.

Instead of snacking on chips and dips try using raw nuts and seeds with organic raisins. Mix them together for a great trail mix that will kill your hunger pangs in the afternoon and give your heart protection against clots and arrhythmias. Try to get rid of all the processed chips and snack foods in the house. Substitute ice cream for sherbet or homemade popsicles made with real fruit juice.

When you are cooking meals don’t deep fry but oven bake instead. Get rid of the sour cream, heavy whipping creams and butter from recipes. Instead substitute whole foods using baked potato for French Fries, brown rice instead of white or vinegar and oil based salad dressings instead of mayonnaise-based dressings.

Using heart healthy recipes to boost your nutrition will help your heart, your energy, decrease your cholesterol and triglycerides as well as decrease your risk of diabetes, stroke, heart disease and immune mediated illnesses. Keeping your heart healthy keeps the rest of your body healthy too.

Resources:

MayoClinic: Heart Disease

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/heart-healthy-diet/NU00196

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services: Lowering Your Cholesterol with TLC

http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/public/heart/chol/chol_tlc.pdf

American Heart Association: Managing Blood Pressure with Heart Healthy Diet

http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/Conditions/HighBloodPressure/PreventionTreatmentofHighBloodPressure/Managing-Blood-Pressure-with-a-Heart-Healthy-Diet_UCM_301879_Article.jsp

University of Maryland Medical Center Heart-Healthy Diet Lifestyle Changes

http://www.umm.edu/patiented/articles/where_else_can_information_about_heart-healthy_diets_be_obtained_000043_4.htm

Women’s Health.gov: Heart Healthy Eating

http://womenshealth.gov/publications/our-publications/fact-sheet/heart-healthy-eating.cfm

Harvard Health Publications: Healthy Eating for a Healthy Heart