low cholesterol diet

How to lower cholesterol

Cholesterol in your diet

The sad truth about dieting is that everyone has to take heed of it. Even if you are not at a stage where you feel you need to lose weight, dieting also involves making sure you eat the right kinds of food on a daily basis, and that you do not indulge too much in foods that you know to be bad for you.

This is because dieting is not only about losing weight, but about keeping your body at its best, and reducing the likelihood of any food related diseases and the like, particularly those caused by high cholesterol.

How to lower cholesterol

The mystery of how to reduce cholesterol is one that should concern us all. Even the healthiest of individuals still need to find a way to keep their cholesterol levels down, if only because cholesterol is a silent predator.

If you have too much cholesterol in your diet then you may not even realise it, and by the time you do realise it, it could be far too late. This is why there is such a pressing need for finding out how to lower cholesterol. Luckily, it is actually no real mystery, and is fairly easy to do.

Finding cholesterol lowering foods

What may also allow you to breathe a sigh of relief is the fact that not all cholesterol is bad for you. You can easily find a plethora of foods with ‘good cholesterol’, and even foods that can help to lower your current cholesterol levels.

Food companies are catching on to this, and say now it is actually fairly easy to find food in the supermarket that is labelled as lowering cholesterol, and most of the time they do this. However there is a far easier way of keeping your cholesterol levels down, and that is simply by realising which foods contain high amounts of cholesterol.

Steps to a healthier body

So, rather than buying high cholesterol foods only to then buy foods that lower cholesterol, cut out the middle man by going straight for the low cholesterol foods and avoiding others. It is quite simple to know which foods are good and bad – all the usual suspects such as butter, fried food, cheese and the like contain more cholesterol than you need.

By simply reducing the amount of high cholesterol that you buy, you can start to save money and live far more healthily. What a lot of people think is that dieting has to be a chore, but there are a lot of low cholesterol items out there that are still delicious. Take certain forms of fish for example – despite being a form of meat with a vast amount of protein, salmon can help lower your cholesterol levels, as it contains ‘good’ fat.

Whole grain food can also be incredibly tasty, and whilst eating it you will know you are helping your body. In the end you will see that how to lower cholesterol is easy, and you will start to feel far healthier, simply by following a few simple changes to your daily diet.

10 cholesterol lowering foods

If you have to introduce foods into your diet to reduce cholesterol the range is probably wider than you imagine and incorporating them into a healthy eating plan is not as difficult as it may first seem. The foods cover the entire spectrum of food from nuts to red wine and by nature, most are relatively healthy. Watch out for upping your calorie intake. You are looking to lower your cholesterol not add to the problem by gaining weight so as with all foods, even those good for you, moderation and a balanced diet is still the most important factor.

 1. Good fats:

Some fats and oils can actually help to lower cholesterol. Plant fats found in nuts and seeds, sunflower and safflower oil, canola and rice bran oil all help to reduced LDL cholesterol. Fat found in olives and olive oil and oily fish can also lower cholesterol.

 2. Legumes:

Legumes such as chickpeas, kidney beans, cannellini beans, soy beans and lentils are all great cholesterol lowering foods that are high in fibre. They can be bought dry and soaked overnight before cooking, or bought in cans and heated.

 3. Quinoa:

Quinoa is a cholesterol-lowing seed that you can use instead of pasta or rice. You can cook it the same way as rice with the absorption method. Use one cup quinoa to two cups water and bring to the boil before reducing to a simmer. Cover the saucepan and cook for 15 minutes. Quinoa has a slightly nutty flavour.

 4. Red wine:

Studies have found that a glass of red wine each night may assist in increasing your HDL cholesterol levels. Recent studies have found that red wine contains saponin, which helps to lower bad LDL cholesterol, especially syrah and red zinfandel varieties.

 5. Vegetables:

Diets high in vegetables have been shown to lower cholesterol levels. Consider becoming a vegetarian for a few months to lower your cholesterol quickly, or cut down on your meat intake and increase your vegetable intake to include a wide range of fibrous vegetables. Eat five or more serves of vegetables each day and, if you do eat meat, choose very lean cuts.

6. Food with fibre:

Foods that contain fibre are great for lowering your cholesterol. The best foods are those which contain water soluble fibre. Try oat bran, psyllium seeds, rice bran, wheat germ, gua gum and pectin. These foods form a gel that binds to the cholesterol in your intestines and allows you to excrete cholesterol instead of absorbing in into the bloodstream. Foods containing fiber also improve the levels of good HDL cholesterol while decreasing bad LDL cholesterol. Sprinkle a tablespoon of bran or psyllium seeds onto your breakfast cereal or add some into your homemade baking.

 7. Garlic:

Garlic contains sulphur compounds and is thought to lower your cholesterol levels in a mild way. Include garlic in your daily diet by adding it to savoury dishes.

 8. Onions:

Like garlic, onions contain sulphur compounds that may have a positive effect in lowering your cholesterol levels. Eating a raw onion a day may actually increase your levels of good HDL cholesterol up to thirty percent, while lowering bad cholesterol levels.

 9. Alfalfa sprouts:

Alfalfa sprouts contain saponin and have been shown to lower LDL cholesterol and improve HDL cholesterol levels in the body. The chemicals and fibres in alfalfa stick to bad LDL cholesterol so that it doesn’t become deposited in the blood vessel walls, while it leaves good LDL cholesterol alone.

 10. Soy products:

Food that contains soy protein and soy isoflavones has been shown to lower LDL cholesterol. Cholesterol lowering soy products include tofu, soy milk and the Indonesian food tempeh.

10 high cholesterol foods

Cholesterol is found in animal products such as egg yolks, red meat, poultry, full fat dairy and seafood. If you wish to reduce your bad LDL cholesterol levels, it is best to restrict your intake of these foods. Remember, also, that foods high in saturated fat will increase your LDL cholesterol levels and sugar can also have a detrimental effect on your cholesterol health.

 1. Shellfish:

Squid, shrimp, and oysters are high in dietary cholesterol. If you wish to decrease your cholesterol intake, choose scallops, mussels and clams, which are shellfish that are low in dietary cholesterol.

2. Eggs:

One egg yolk contains 200–250mg of dietary cholesterol, which is nearly the total recommended intake of 300mg cholesterol per day. If you suffer from high cholesterol, you can substitute whole eggs for egg whites, which have no cholesterol. Where a recipe calls for one egg, use to egg whites to substitute. However, if you have normal cholesterol levels you probably do not need to reduce your egg yolk intake.

 3. Organ meats:

Organ meats such as liver, kidneys and sweetbreads are high in cholesterol, despite being fairly low in fat.

 4. Fatty processed meats:

Processed meats like bacon, bologna, salami, hot dogs, and sausage are high in fat and salt and are high in cholesterol. Choose lean cuts of meat like turkey and chicken breast and avoid fatty cuts of meat and processed meat. Always trim the fat off whole cuts of meat to reduce your fat intake.

 5. Fatty dairy products:

Butter, sauces made with cream and large quantities of whole milk dairy products are high in animal fat and should be avoided. Choose skim milk products that contain less fat and cholesterol. Replace cream and sour cream with low fat or non-fat yoghurt.

 6. Full-fat cheese:

Cheese is high in cholesterol and you should limit your intake to twice a week if you need to reduce your cholesterol levels. Choose reduced fat hard cheeses and choose low fat white cheeses like ricotta and cottage cheese over hard cheese. Look for white cheese that is one percent fat.

 7. Goose and duck:

Duck and goose meat has far more cholesterol than chicken or turkey and the skin of these poultry are very high in cholesterol.

 8.Trans fats:

Trans fats found in margarine, biscuits, croissants, doughnuts, pastries and processed snack foods raise your LDL cholesterol and reduce the good HDL cholesterol in your bloodstream. Foods containing trans fats should be avoided altogether. Check labels of packaged food and use polyunsaturated fat when cooking sweets at home.

 9. Deep fried foods:

Deep fried food such as chips, fish and battered take-away food can be cooked with trans fats and contain a lot of hidden fat. Choose food that has been cooked in polyunsaturated or monounsaturated oil instead.

 10. Sugar:

While sugar does not contain dietary cholesterol, eating sugar promotes cholesterol production in your body. The average person’s intake of sugar is far higher than it should be and sugar is addictive. Cutting down on sugar within your diet in general will improve your cholesterol levels and lead to other health benefits.

Avoiding High Cholesterol Foods

We are being almost constantly bombarded with nutritional advice nowadays, specifically with regards to high cholesterol foods, and at times it can be hard to understand what you should eat and what you shouldn’t. For example, how much cholesterol per day is normal for an average person to eat? Are there different types of cholesterol that will affect me differently? It is obviously very important to know, so that you can plan the kind of things that you eat on a daily basis. If you eat the right kind of foods, then you can be in complete control of your body image.

However, as many people know, having a low cholesterol diet is not always easy. Ironically the tastiest foods are some of the worst for our health – with the problem many people have being that foods with high cholesterol are the easiest and cheapest to buy. This is not a coincidence. Many of the ways in which producers can keep the cost of food down is to make it using methods that are cheaper and unhealthier. Specifically in high fat foods such as cheese and butter, the worst forms of cholesterol are found. One of the main culprits is fast food – the way that it is cooked once again causing high cholesterol.

What is the problem?

Unfortunately, high cholesterol levels have been linked to problems such as heart disease, but more commonly simply obesity. Whilst obesity itself may not seem like a huge problem, in the long run it can cause serious problems. Problems include constant fatigue, increased risk of organ failure, and also of heart attacks. Even if this is a risk you are willing to take, often obesity can be hereditary, meaning you could endanger any children you have simply through eating too much fast food and foods with high cholesterol.

How can this be avoided?

Luckily, governments everywhere are starting to recognise that obesity and high cholesterol levels are a major problem, and there is plenty of help that you can get. However, one of the simplest ways to avoid risk of heart disease and the like is to simply avoid cholesterol wherever you can. There are more and more government initiatives that are attempting to make people more aware of the food they eat. Take the ‘five a day’ for example, or the fact that most foods show ever more nutritional data, allowing you to see how much of a food you should consume, at most, per day.

Luckily, once you start to notice which are the high cholesterol foods, these can easily be avoided. By simply cutting these things out of your diet, you are able to save a lot of worry and potential health problems. You will also feel far healthier. Even if you are not unhealthy now, switching to a diet that you consider to be healthy will have plenty of beneficial psychological effects too, making this extremely worthwhile.