Go Red for American Heart Month

Did you know that February is American Heart Month? It’s a time dedicated to raising awareness of the number one cause of death in America, heart disease. While certain risk factors for heart disease are out of your control, your diet is one thing that you can improve upon to lower your risk.

One way to lower your risk of heart disease is by managing your blood pressure by lowering your salt intake. Additionally, there are some simple changes you can make to your diet to improve your heart health.

If you are concerned about your blood pressure, do not hesitate to reach out to a medical professional. It is important to attend regular check-ups with your physician to allow you to keep on top of your current blood pressure.

Eating Heart Healthy

Although sodium is a component that is necessary in your diet, often people include too much of it. Too much sodium increases your risk of high blood pressure and heart disease. Reduce daily sodium intake to less than 2,300 mg (that’s 1 teaspoon!). Try the following tips to help curtail your sodium intake:

Read the Labels: Soups, bread, canned foods, and frozen meals are often packed with sodium. The next time you are in the supermarket look at the nutrition label and choose the foods with the lower sodium numbers. Some packaged foods to pay attention to are cereals, crackers, pasta sauces, canned beans and vegetables, and frozen meals. Low sodium on a label means the product has less than 140 mg of sodium per serving; very low sodium means 35 mg or less per serving, and salt or sodium free means less than 5 mg sodium per serving and does not contain sodium chloride.

DASH Diet: The DASH diet stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension. This meal plan is low in sodium and rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat and non-fat dairy products. The DASH diet has been shown to have blood pressure-lowering effects.

Avoid Added Salt: Oftentimes, restaurants include additional salt in their dishes. The next time you are dining out, make a request to your waiter/waitress to ask the chef to please leave off any additional salt to your dish.

Become Familiar with Herbs and Spices: When cooking your next meal, leave out the salt and experiment with various herbs and spices. Try basil, curry powder, or ginger on your fish, or season your poultry with rosemary, thyme, or marjoram.

Five Simple Changes You Can Make

Changing your diet completely is not always feasible. However, there are some simple tips you can follow that can help improve your heart health.

If you now eat 1 or 2 vegetables a day, add a serving at lunch and another at dinner.

If you don’t eat fruit or have only juice at breakfast, add a serving to your meals or have it as a snack.

Gradually increase your use of lower fat dairy products to 3 servings a day. For example, replace one cup of soda with a cup of fat-free or low-fat milk per day. Try yogurt with some fruit as a snack.

Read food labels to choose those lowest in saturated fats and trans fats. Specifically, check the label on the margarine and salad dressing. Some margarine is now trans-fat-free and there are a large variety of salad dressings that contain virtually no saturated or trans fats.

Treat meat as a part of your meal, instead of the focus. Try limiting meat to 6 ounces a day (2 servings—a single serving is the size of a deck of cards). If you now eat large portions of meat, cut back gradually—by a half or a third at each meal. In addition, decrease the amount of meat in dishes by replacing a portion with beans (they provide great protein).

Your Turn to Action: What changes will you make this month to keep your heart healthy? Let me know in the comments below.