When it comes to eating foods that are good or bad for you, you have a number of choices. However, what you eat will have a long-term effect on your overall health, so it’s important to eat as healthy as possible and indulge in junk food in moderation. This will work to keep your heart in the best possible condition. Knowing some of the foods that you should stay away from may be helpful to you.
French fries
At the risk of ruining state fairs forever, we have to break it to you that no fried food is actually heart-healthy. That’s because they’re so high in saturated and trans fats, two things that should comprise only a tiny amount of your diet.
Eating French fries from a fast-food restaurant can be even more damaging to your health than other types because these are typically dipped in a deep fryer. A better option would be baking fries in the oven which prevents you from having all the oil that you don’t need.
Sausage
Processed meats have earned a terrible reputation among cardiologists pretty much since we figured out what that thumping thing in the middle of our chests was. And that’s not for nothing — that category of foods (which includes bacon, ham, and hot dogs) has been proven to increase your risk of heart failure.
It’s a much better option to choose fish or chicken breast for your daily meat consumption.
Red meats (plus pork!)
Red meats have a considerable amount of cholesterol and saturated fat, as well as another terror called L-carnitine. It is highly recommended to limit your intake of this on a regular basis. Cardiologists advise patients to limit lean red meats to less than 10% of their average diet to play it safe, and don’t think you can get away with replacing your porterhouse with a pork chop.
Potato and corn chips
Chips are loaded with a number of chemicals that make these highly processed. They’re packed with carbs, sometimes high in trans fat, and, worst of all, swimming in sodium.
If you do decide to indulge your appetite and have some chips, limit these to only ten single chips.
Soda
Soda is not the best choice you can make. A standard soda has between 50 and 60 grams of processed sugar. This is almost the entire recommended daily limit for sugar grams for adults.
It’s much better for your body to simply drink water and if you want some flavor with it, consider adding some lemon.
Chinese food
American Chinese food may be the worst kind of food for your body. It’s loaded with sodium and fat, to make things worse it’s typically fried. Consider getting steamed options, these are a whole lot better albeit the sodium content.
Pizza
Most people love a good hot pizza. It’s convenient to have it delivered to your home or even to stick one in the oven for an easy meal. However, the crust is high in carbs and sodium, and when you add many of the most popular toppings it adds fat and sodium. So consider a salad pizza, it’s quite tasty.
Canned soup
You may think eating soup is good for your health, but not the canned type. Those tiny cans of Campbell soups contain 600-800mg of sodium each. It’s much better for your health to make your own soup out of fresh vegetables from your garden.
Butter-, mayo-, or sour cream-laden foods
Butter is not great for your heart health. Of course, neither is mayo or sour cream, it’s a spread that’s particularly high in saturated fat — and all three have are loaded with cholesterol.
Many people think that margarine is a much better choice when compared to butter, however not all margarines are created equal. The more sold the margarine, the more trans fat it has. So opt for the margarine spreads that don’t have trans fat.
Let us Help!
At Brookhaven Heart, we can help create a diet plan that is heart healthy and even check the condition of your hear. Be sure to give us a call today at 631 654-3278 to schedule an appointment with us!
