Your eating habits affect your health. More than 102 million American adults had high cholesterol in 2010, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More than 35 million of these people had levels high enough to put them at significant risk for heart disease. It takes a bit of planning to change your eating habits, but it is not difficult to transition to a low cholesterol diet.
Features
A low cholesterol diet features foods that are high in fiber and nutrition while low in fat, dietary cholesterol and calories. This diet focuses on fiber provided by whole grain foods, like whole wheat bread, oatmeal and brown rice. Fruits, vegetables and legumes are excellent sources of fiber. A cholesterol-reducing diet replaces unhealthy fats with healthier oils, such as choosing tub margarine with plant sterols over stick butter, or using olive oil instead of shortening. Fish, like salmon and mackerel, contain healthy omega-3 fatty acids, which improve your cholesterol levels and reduce some of the circulatory system damage caused by high cholesterol. Eat these healthy fishes twice a week for maximum benefit.
Eating
A successful cholesterol diet begins at home. Identify the foods and eating patterns that lead to high cholesterol, such as frequenting fast food restaurants or eating bacon double cheeseburgers three nights a week. A person seeking to lower his cholesterol can compose a grocery list to help him purchase all the ingredients he needs to prepare heart-healthy food for several days. A low cholesterol diet should be conveniently prepared at home so that you are not tempted to grab a bag of fatty fast food.
Saturated Fat
Saturated fat raises your bad LDL cholesterol level more than anything else in your diet, according to the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute. Saturated fat is solid at room temperature, like butter or the white strip along the edge of a steak. Animal products like meat and dairy are the main sources of saturated fat, although coconut oil, palm oil and palm kernel oil contain this unhealthy fat. Fat is high in calories, delivering about 9 calories per gram, when compared to the 4 calories in every gram of carbohydrates and proteins. You should get no more than 7 percent of your daily caloric intake from saturated fat, according to the American Heart Association.
Trans Fat
Trans fats are extremely unhealthy. Food manufacturers use trans fats to extend shelf life and to improve a product's texture. Commercially baked products, like snack cakes and cookies, typically contain trans fats. Reduce your trans fat intake so that it accounts for less than 1 percent of your daily calories.
Risks
Your body converts the unhealthy fats you eat into cholesterol and then disperses this cholesterol throughout your body in your bloodstream. Excess cholesterol and other fatty substances build up in your blood stream, accumulating inside arterial walls. This accumulation causes vascular damage and prevents blood from flowing properly to vital organs, including the heart. It is in this way that a high cholesterol diet causes heart disease. Every 1 percent drop in your blood cholesterol level reduces your risk for heart disease by 2 percent, according to Cleveland Clinic.
References
- Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: September is National Cholesterol Education Month; August 26, 2010
- National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute; What Causes High Blood Cholesterol?
- American Heart Association; Know Your Fats; January 6, 2011
- Cleveland Clinic; High Blood Cholesterol: What You Need to Know; 2009
