You are what you eat. For you to stay healthy, you must watch your diet. Eating unhealthy can cause you serious health issues, but the good news is, you can avoid this by watching your diet.
Heart disease is among the top killers in the world. Cardiovascular diseases can take a toll on anyone but can be managed or rather controlled by adopting a healthy diet and exercising to burn off the calories. To achieve these, a total lifestyle change is inevitable. No single meal can help your heart health; you need a variety. Adopting healthy eating habits prevents and manages heart disease and any other health complications related to heart diseases.
A heart -healthy diet helps you lower calories, manage blood pressure and control your blood sugar levels.
Below are a few tips on how you can cook your food to help you to have a healthy heart.
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Cook with healthy fats
The type of fats you use can make all the difference. Replace saturated fats with unsaturated fats. Trans fats are in processed baked foods, stick margarine and fast foods.
Saturated fats are in solid fat like lard and butter, red meat and processed meat. You can replace this with plant based oils. Cook with Canola oil instead of butter and lard.
You can invest in a power air fryer to cut down on cooking oil. The power air fryer uses super heated air to fry food. It needs little or no oil at all to prepare your meals. It is also known to reduce fat consumption to 80% less. You can enjoy your cooked meals without any doubts on adding calories.
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Cook fish
For the meat go for fish. Sardines, Fresh tuna, and Salmon are good for your heart. They have high in Omega 3 which protects your heart from diseases. It is advisable you include fish in your diet twice a week. This simple adjustment will do your heart good preventing and controlling heart diseases.
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Cook Fresh Foods
Cooking with fresh food is an easy way to reduce sodium intake. This is because a large intake of sodium is in processed foods. You may wonder how sodium and heart-health are related. Well, too much sodium in your diet may trigger high blood pressure, and as a result, your heart works harder, and this can lead to heart-related issues Like stroke. You can lower sodium in your diet by cooking fresh vegetables, meat, and whole grains.
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Cook with Spices
You can substitute salt with other low-sodium flavors which taste as good. You don’t have to use salt for your food to be tasty. Get creative and use alternatives such as garlic, fresh herbs, salt-free seasonings, and spices. Not only are they low on sodium but also low on calories and carbohydrates.
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Cook more fiber
Cooking potatoes with the skin on is a good way to start. Just increase fiber in your diet by increasing fruits, vegetables, whole grain cereals and whole meal bread in your diet. All these will lower your heart -health risks.
For best results, you might need to change the way you cook completely. You can try to bake, boil grill, poach or sauté your food. Instead of pan frying or even deep frying your chicken, you can cook it and season it with herbs and spices. The flavor may not be the same but trust me you will get used to it and your heart will thank you for that. Just because you are making heart-healthy meals, it doesn’t mean you make them in a hurry and tasteless. Take your time and prepare a meal plan with all the ingredients and decide which cooking methods you will use.