Heart Smart Recipes

If you have been diagnosed with a heart problem, or simply want to keep your heart ticking away happily, there are many dietary changes you can make to your food plan. Your diet can make or break your heart health, and every food choice you make can impact your health in a positive or negative way in the future. If you choose heart healthy foods, and cook heart healthy recipes, you will greatly lower your risks for developing heart disease, and can keep your cholesterol and blood pressure at a low level.

By cooking heart healthy recipes for your family you will be lowering everyone’s risk for developing heart related diseases in the long run. The first thing you can do is use healthy oils that are monosaturated, like palm oil and canola oil. Using oil instead of butter and margarine is a big step you can take to improve your heart health.

The type of fat that is found in healthy oils will lower your cholesterol and can make your whole body work well, especially your blood vessels and your heart. Whenever you cook a recipe, make it heart healthy by substituting these healthy oils for butter or margarine.

Other things you can do to develop heart healthy recipes are trying different methods of cooking. Learn how to grill, bake or broil your meats instead of deep frying them. Add heart healthy veggies and fruits to any meal you make for instant heart health benefits!

For example, if you were going to make spaghetti for a meal, use olive oil and fresh tomatoes to make a sauce. You can also throw in as many veggies as you can, like mushrooms, onions, peppers or zucchini. Not only will you have a heart healthy, delicious meal, but you can get a bunch of your daily veggies out of the way in an easy and delicious manner.

When you cook meals for your family, use cuts of meat that are lean. Fatty meats are bad for your heart, but lean proteins can give you the calories you need while not loading you up with saturated fats, which can harm you. If you need to use beef, try to purchase cuts of meat that are leaner, like round or loin. Also, spend the little bit extra to purchase low fat ground beef. The differences in the fat content from the full fat to the low fat ground beef are astounding. You can further cut your fat by draining meat of any excess oil. If you can, choose chicken or turkey over ground beef for your heart healthy recipes. They have less fat and can be better for your heart. However, always check nutrition labels, so you can know what food you are really eating!

Do not make the mistake of thinking that all heart healthy food is bland or not appetizing. By creating heart healthy recipes with lean meats, good oils like palm oil and canola oil, and adding more fruits and veggies to your daily recipes, you can create a great heart healthy eating plan for yourself and your family.