Your diet is directly tied to your health. While eating a healthy diet is no guarantee of good overall health, it is a great place to start. Providing your body with the nutrients it needs, and not providing it too much in the way of excess calories, is an excellent way to protect your body over the long run. In this blog post, we are going to highlight some heart healthy foods that will hopefully help you put together a smart cardiac diet. Tastes vary from person to person, of course, so you may not like everything on this list – and that’s okay. The good news is there are plenty of foods that fit into the heart healthy category, so you should be able to land on a few options that you love.
Whole Grains
This is admitted a whole category of foods, rather than one single item, but they can be grouped together because there are so many great choices to pick from. In a day and age where many people eat mostly refined grains that have had much of their nutritious value stripped away, you would be wise to steer yourself toward whole grains. Some of the popular types of whole grains that you might want to consider adding to your diet include quinoa, whole wheat, brown rice, oats, and more.
So, why are whole grains so desirable from a heart health perspective? Much of the benefit comes down to the presence of plenty of fiber. Fiber is believed to help reduce the LDL cholesterol in your body, which is commonly referred to as the ‘bad’ cholesterol. There are also indications that consuming plenty of whole grains can work to lower your systolic blood pressure.
Avocados
For many people, this is one of the easiest heart healthy foods to consume, simply because avocados are so tasty and have a wonderful texture. There are numerous benefits to eating avocados, and one of the biggest is the abundance of monounsaturated fats. Those are considered to be good fats in that they are healthy for your heart and are connected to lower cholesterol. You’ll also receive a significant amount of potassium when you eat an avocado. With so many ways to incorporate this delicious food into your diet, put avocados near the top of your shopping list.
Dark Chocolate
That’s right – your dreams have come true! Chocolate has made the list of heart healthy foods, and for good reason. It’s important to pay attention to the details here, however, as we are talking specifically about dark chocolate. There have been studies that seem to link dark chocolate to heart health, although there is no firmly establish scientific link just yet. The potential benefit here could be associated with the antioxidants that are found in quality dark chocolates.
We do need to point out that buying good dark chocolate is important, so shop for something that has a cocoa content up around 70% or beyond. If you move down into sweet or semi-sweet chocolate, the additional sugar that you’ll be consuming will move the food out of what would be considered a healthy category. And, we are sorry to say, it’s still important to monitor your intake here, as eating too much chocolate will quickly rack up the calories and end up being a negative in your cardiac diet.
Almonds
Along with avocados, this is another of the heart healthy foods that has gained popularity in recent years thanks to perceived health benefits and the fact that they are extremely tasty. If you eat almonds as a regular snack, you’ll benefit from monounsaturated fats along with fiber, and both of those are positives with regard to heart disease defense. One place you need to be careful with almonds, however, is with calorie totals. Although they are small, almonds pack a significant number of calories into a little package. If you eat a lot of them at one time, you might end up overshooting your caloric intake goal for the day. Some of the best treatments for heart health start long before you have a heart attack or other cardiovascular event. In fact, treating your body properly each day by providing it with the right foods is a great start. We hope this blog has enlightened you on some of the popular heart healthy foods you can consider adding to your diet. Whether you’ve been told to go on a cardiac diet or you just want to make smart choices, this is something you can start right away. When you visit Beverly Hills Cardiovascular for help with your heart-related health issues, we can provide you with many services. Some of those are as follows: physical examinations, treadmill exercise stress test, coronary calcium scoring and heart disease scoring, and many more. We appreciate the time you have spent on our blog, and we look forward to hearing from you soon.
