Using Low Cholesterol Recipes To Lower Cholesterol

If you have recently seen your doctor to get the results of your cholesterol blood test, then it’s probably because you have some valid concerns about your diet, the role cholesterol plays in your diet, and have more questions about what foods lower cholesterol and how you can change your cooking to a more cholesterol friendly diet.

Now, eating a good diet can be very straight forward. First of all you should be eating a diet that is rich in lots of fresh fruits and vegetables (the healthy carbohydrates), as well as protein from legumes (dried beans, peas and lentils), and meats or dairy products.

And this is where the trouble starts. Butter, red meats, poultry and eggs - all animal products contain cholesterol, with red meats, egg yolks and butter being the worst cholesterol offenders.

For your cooking and recipes, you need to try to include as many low cholesterol foods as you can, while you also work on reducing the volume of high cholesterol foods.

This will result in a lowering of the risk that you have for strokes and heart attacks.

The protein that these foods provide is vital for the health of your internal organs, and for building strong tendons and muscles, as well as maintaining bones, hair, blood and skin. So, by some means you still need to have this protein in your diet, but it shouldn’t be from high cholesterol foods available. Fish can also provide you with protein, and seafood is a good source too, especially salmon, sardines and herring which contain the omega 3 fatty acids that your body also requires.

Milk too contains protein, but because it is an animal product it too has fat so you should drink skim milk, or 1% milk instead of whole milk or 2%. If your family is used to drinking the milk with higher fat levels, you may get some complaints initially, but given time, if you still buy the better choices, they will probably come to accept it.

Instead of cooking with butter (animal product), try using olive oil (plant product) instead, especially the virgin olive oil which is less processed than the light olive oils. In fact the light olive oil refers to the color, and not the number of calories it contains - very misleading when we usually use light meaning less calories.

One way of lowering the fat level in baking is to use mashed bananas, apple sauce or pureed prunes instead of the fat, and this also increases your fruit in your diet too.

Nuts are good for you when you are worried about your cholesterol, but only eat a handful a day, or you will be eating too many calories which is generally not a good idea.

When you are preparing hamburgers, you can throw in some oats, as this is a good food to help you lower your cholesterol. Legumes, or pulses as they are also known, or more commonly, dried beans, peas and lentils are also effective cholesterol lowering foods containing soluble fibre, as do barley, pears and apples.

There is plenty more about foods which have high and low cholesterol as well as foods to lower cholesterol with recipes here .