Health! Health! Health! - Tips on Healthy Food

TOP FIVE FOODS TO LOWER YOUR CHOLESTEROL.

A few tweaks to your diet may be enough to lower your cholesterol to a healthy level and help you to stay off medications. Consider adding these cholesterol lowering foods to your diet:


· Oat meal and oat bran.

· Walnuts, almonds and other nuts

· Fish, especially mackerel, lake trout, herring, sardines, albacore tuna and salmon.

· Olive oil

· Foods fortified with plant sterols or stanols such as margarines, orange juice and yogurt drinks.

NOT ALL FATS ARE BAD FOR HEART.

While saturated and trans fats are roadblocks to a healthy heart, unsaturated fats are essential for good health. You just have to know the difference. “Good” fats include:

· Omega 3 Fatty Acids. Fatty fish like salmon, trout, or herring and flaxseed, canola oil, and walnuts all contain polyunsaturated fats that are vital for the body.

· Omega 6 Fatty Acids. Vegetable oils, soy nuts, and many types of seeds all contain healthy fats.

· Monounsaturated fats. Almonds, cashews, peanuts, pecans, and butters made from these nuts, as well as avocadoes, are all great sources of “good” fat.


7 FOODS TO KEEP YOU YOUNG.

Put the fountain of youth in your grocery cart.

·

· Olive oil.

Four decades ago, researchers from the Seven Countries Study concluded that the monounsaturated fats in olive oil were largely responsible for the low rates of heart disease and cancer . Now we know that olive oil also contains polyphenols, powerful antioxidants that may help prevent age-related diseases.

· Yogurt.

yogurt is rich in calcium, which helps stave off osteoporosis and contains "good bacteria" that help maintain gut health and diminish the incidence of age-related intestinal illness.

· Fish.

Fish is an abundant source of omega-3 fats, which help prevent cholesterol buildup in arteries and protect against abnormal heart rhythms.

· Chocolate.

Dark chocolates are rich in flavanols that help preserve the healthy function of blood vessels. Maintaining youthful blood vessels lowers risk of high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, kidney disease and dementia.

· Nuts.

Nuts are rich sources of unsaturated fats, so they offer benefits similar to those associated with olive oil. They're also concentrated sources of vitamins, minerals and other phytochemicals, including antioxidants.

· Wine.

Drinking alcohol in moderation protects against heart disease, diabetes and age-related memory loss. Any kind of alcoholic beverage seems to provide such benefits, but red wine has been the focus of much of the research. Red wine contains resveratrol, a compound that likely contributes to its benefits—and, according to animal studies, may activate genes that slow cellular aging.

· Blueberries.

Compounds in blueberries (and other berries) mitigate inflammation and oxidative damage, which are associated with age-related deficits in memory and motor function.