Healthy eating - healthy heart

Making some changes to the food you eat can lower the level of cholesterol in your blood and so reduce your risk of heart disease.

It is recommended to:

Eat more fibre
Eat less salt
Eat less sugar
Eat less fat in total and choose food high in polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fat rather than saturated fat.

This can be done simply by :

Spreading butter or margarine thinly.
Use semi skimmed or skimmed milk.
Buy lean meat and trim off fat.
Try not to eat pies and pastries too often.
Try having more chicken and fish dishes - fish fingers and fish cakes are suitable.
Have more potatoes, rice, pasta or bread on your plate.
Use more beans, peas and lentils.
Fill up with more vegetables and fruit.
Have breakfast cereals, porridge, wholemeal bread and rolls more often.
Only fry food occasionally using a corn, soya, rapeseed or sunflower oil.
If you fancy chips use oven chips or use one of the above oils.
Keep intake of cheese to around 4oz per week.
Choose fruit for snacks and puddings instead of biscuits, cakes, pastry, chocolate, crisps or nuts.
Natural yoghurt can be used instead of cream for desserts and in cooking and makes a suitable salad dressing.

Foods containing cholesterol have only a small influence on blood cholesterol levels, therefore, foods such as eggs, liver and shellfish can be included in normal quantities once a week.

Keep to an ideal weight for height.

Drink alcohol in moderation.