Healthy Choices for a Healthy Heart
Healthy Choices for a Healthy Heart
A healthy diet can help reduce your risk of developing coronary heart disease and stop you from gaining weight, reducing your risk of diabetes and high blood pressure.
A balanced diet
Everyone should aim for a well-balanced diet. Faddy crash diets may not provide the balance of nutrients you need.
The best way to understand it is to think of foods in food groups.
Try to eat:
- plenty of fruit and vegetables
- plenty of starchy foods such as bread, rice, potatoes, and pasta. Choose wholegrain varieties wherever possible
- some milk and dairy products
- some meat, fish, eggs, beans, and other non-dairy sources of protein
- only a small amount of foods and drinks high in fats and/or sugar.
Choose options that are lower in fat, salt, and sugar whenever you can.
Fruit and vegetables
A well-balanced diet should include at least 5 portions of fruit and veg a day. Try to vary the types of fruit and veg you eat.
They can be fresh, frozen, dried, or tinned. Pure unsweetened fruit juice, pulses, and beans count as a portion, but they only make up a maximum of one of your five a day, however much you eat in one day.
A portion is about a handful (80g or 3oz), for example:
- 4 broccoli florets
- 1 pear
- 3 heaped tablespoons of carrots
- 7-8 strawberries
Fats
To help look after your heart health it is important to make sure you choose the right type of fats.
So to help keep your heart healthy:
- Replace saturated fats with small amounts of mono and polyunsaturated fats
- Cut down on foods containing trans fats.
- It’s also important to remember that all fats and oils are high in calories, so even unsaturated fats should only be used in small amounts.
Saturated fat
Too much-saturated fat can increase the amount of cholesterol in the blood, which can increase the risk of developing coronary heart disease.
Unsaturated fats
Unsaturated fats, which can be monounsaturated fats (for example olive oil, rapeseed oil, almonds, unsalted cashews, and avocado) or polyunsaturated fats (including sunflower oil and vegetable oil, walnuts, sunflower seeds, and oily fish) are healthier choices.
Trans fats
Another type of fat, known as trans fat, can also raise the amount of cholesterol in the blood.
At the moment UK guidelines encourage us to swap saturated fats for unsaturated fats. You might have seen reports about a study we helped to fund which suggests there’s not enough evidence to back the current UK guidelines on the types of fat we eat. We think more research is needed before suggesting any major changes to healthy eating guidance.
Salt
Eating too much salt can increase the risk of developing high blood pressure. Having high blood pressure increases the risk of developing coronary heart disease.
