Heart Disease and Diet

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Heart Disease and Diet: Recommendations

• Maintain your ideal body weight and balance the number of calories you eat with the number you use each day. You can ask a dietician or a health care professional for help in calculating these numbers.
• Limit your intake of foods high in calories or low in nutrition, including foods like soft drinks and candy that have lots of sugars.
• Eat 5 or more servings per day of fruits and vegetables.
• Eat 6 or more servings per day of grain products, including whole grains. Grain products provide fiber, vitamins, minerals, and complex carbohydrates. The daily calories should be appropriate for the maintenance of desirable body weight and should support growth in children and adolescents.
• Reduce total fat intake. Limit foods high in saturated fat, trans fat and/or cholesterol and partially hydrogenated oils. (The average fat intake of most Americans is too high.) Reduce saturated fat -- the fat that raises your cholesterol level -- by using liquid or tub margarine, canola oil, or olive oil. These have 2g or less of saturated fat per serving.
• Eat less than 300mg of dietary cholesterol daily. (For example, one egg yolk contains an average of 213 mg.)
• Limit salt intake (salt is also called sodium chloride). Sodium chloride should be less than 6 grams/day, which is equal to 2400mg of pure sodium per day. Increased salt intake can be associated with fluid retention, which leads to an increase in the blood volume and is a risk factor for high blood pressure and heart disease.
• Maintain a level of physical activity that keeps you fit and matches the number of calories you eat. Walk or do other activities for at least 30 minutes a day.
• Have no more than one alcoholic drink (such beer) per day if you are a woman and no more than two if you are a man. Moderate alcohol consumption at this level has been linked by several major studies to health benefits, but excessive drinking can damage the heart and other organs.

EATING TIPS

• To reduce fat and cholesterol, eat no more than 6 cooked ounces of meat, poultry, and fish daily. One serving of meat should be about the size of a deck of cards on your plate.
• Use skinless turkey, chicken, fish or lean red meat to reduce the amount of saturated fat in your diet. Lean cuts of red meat may be used occasionally.
• Trim all the visible fat prior to cooking the meat. Eat two servings of fish per week. Cook by baking, broiling, roasting, steaming, boiling, or microwaving rather than deep fat frying. For the main entree, substitute less meat or meatless meals a few times a week. Use smaller amounts of meat to reduce the total fat content of the meal. Use no more than 5 to 8 teaspoons of fats or oils per day for salads, cooking, and baking.
• To reduce high cholesterol, do not use more than 3 to 4 egg yolks per week, including eggs used in cooking. Eat less organ meats (such as liver) and shellfish (such as shrimp and lobster).
• To reduce salt, reduce the amount of table salt used, and limit the use of prepared foods that have salt added to them, such as canned soups and vegetables, cured meats, and some frozen meals. Always check the nutrition label for the sodium content per serving.