For everyone wishing to avoid high cholesterol, the recommended diet is to eat less red meat, less dairy products, fewer sweets, more whole-grain foods, and to eat more fruits and vegetables. But not everyone likes fruits and vegetables that much, and many people are addicted to sweetened beverages. So let’s add some advice that may help people eat more fruits and vegetables.
Vegetables are good for you because they contain a lot of nutrients that are generally not easy to get from other sources. The nutrients are concentrated in water, so they don’t weigh much. But they do count, and if you don’t eat enough vegetables, you won’t get enough vitamins and minerals.
So here’s the advice: Eat as many vegetables as you can find. But don’t eat just vegetables. Eat them with some protein, such as meat or poultry, and some starch, such as bread or potatoes.
Here’s a little trick: Vegetables are healthiest when eaten raw. So chop up raw vegetables and sprinkle them liberally on your food. When you eat vegetables, think in terms of salads.
If you eat this way, you’ll get plenty of vitamins and you won’t gain weight. But eating this way is boring. A better approach is to eat vegetables in cooked form, such as cooked spinach in a chicken dish. There are also lots of ways to disguise vegetables in meat and poultry dishes.
The foods you eat, especially what you eat every day, are the most important factors in determining your risk.
Different foods affect your body in different ways. Some foods raise cholesterol, some lower it. Some foods raise blood pressure, some lower it. Some foods raise uric acid, some lower it. Some foods promote colon cancer, some lower it. And different foods affect these risk factors differently, depending on their ingredients. Reduce your risk by changing what you eat.
