It’s not much of a problem to find lists or discussions about the 10 best foods for your heart, the 15 best, the 25 best, and so on. The message is simply this: there are so many different foods that are good for your heart that you should have no trouble putting together a healthy diet plan that features meals that are both delicious and satisfying. You don’t have to stick to a diet of carrots and lettuce, although both have an important place at the table. You don’t have to confine yourself to eating salads either, but with a little creativity you should be able to come up with a wide variety of salads that are tasty, packed with nutrients, and large enough to serve as meals in themselves.
You can either look to foods that are packed with the right combination of nutrients, or you can make it a habit to avoid those foods that aren’t good for your cardiovascular system. Finding heart-healthy foods, and planning a diet around them, is usually the simplest approach and it tends to be the most satisfying approach as well. If you focus too much on avoiding the foods that are not good for you, you may begin to dwell on those things you’re depriving yourself of. In other words, take a positive approach rather than a negative one.
You can even base part of your plan on color — blueberries, red tomatoes, oranges, yellow bananas, and so on. The color of a food item often gives a reasonably accurate indication of the nutrients it contains. If nothing else, color adds variety. Even brown nuts and grains have their place in the mix.
One of the nicer things about a heart healthy diet is when it comes to serving size, more is often better. This can hold true even if you are trying to lose weight, since most heart healthy foods tend to be low in calorie count. Keeping track of calories is still a good practice, but as far as the heart is concerned, what you eat is usually more important than how much you eat. Fresh is best of course, but flash frozen fruits and vegetables are almost as good, and are useful to have when fresh fruits and veggies aren’t readily available.
The emphasis here is on the term heart-healthy, which may at first seem a bit restrictive. In truth, most healthy diets are also good for the heart. There may be a few exceptions, but you can always check with your doctor to find out if there are some foods that may not be the best for you to eat, even though they may be fine from a nutritional standpoint.
Written by William Savage of Babbling Ink “Outsourcing Professionals United”