High cholesterol is a fairly common condition, affecting more than 1 in 10 Americans. Most people will have their cholesterol levels checked with a blood test at their annual physical. The good news is high cholesterol does not cause any symptoms. But even if it doesn’t cause you any problems in the short term, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t take it seriously. Over time, the extra cholesterol building up in your bloodstream can lead to various health problems.
What is Cholesterol?
Cholesterol is a fatty substance that plays an important role in different components of our body, like making vitamins and hormones. It’s not a problem unless you have too much of it. For a breakdown of the cholesterol panel and what the different types mean, check out our other blog post Cholesterol: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly. Let’s consider what happens when our total cholesterol is too high.
Why Does High Cholesterol Matter?
To cut to the chase, high levels of LDL cholesterol put us at much greater risk for heart disease, the #1 cause of death in the United States.
When too much cholesterol is regularly floating around in our bloodstream, overtime it will form a plaque on the inside lining of our arteries, eventually hardening and narrowing them. This can lead to a blood clot forming which can cause a heart attack or a stroke.
What Can You Do?
Diet and lifestyle changes can often reverse high cholesterol levels without the use of medication. Two of the biggest dietary levers we can pull to improve our cholesterol levels are to reduce the amount of saturated fat we are eating and increase our fiber.
More Fiber, Less Saturated Fat
An eating pattern that supports healthy cholesterol levels is high in fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and liquid plant-oils. Saturated fat directly contributes to raising bad cholesterol levels. According to the American Heart Association, we should aim for less than 6% of our total calories from saturated fat. If you are eating a 2,000 calorie diet, that’s about 13 grams of saturated fat per day. To put in perspective how quickly this can add up, a tablespoon of butter has 7 grams of saturated fat!
Fiber, particularly soluble fiber, sticks to cholesterol as it moves through our digestive system and helps shuttle it out of the body before it can enter our bloodstream. Most Americans don’t eat enough fiber, and this dietary addition can make a big difference.
Top 5 Tips for Adding Cholesterol Lowering Food Into Your Diet
Here are the top 5 practical food tips I recommend my patients to incorporate more cholesterol lowering foods in their diets to achieve both goals: eating more fiber and less saturated fat!
1. Mix ground meat with beans
Whether it’s for Taco Tuesday or a quick burrito bowl, cutting your ground beef with canned beans will reduce the saturated fat by removing some meat, add a fiber-rich food, and as a bonus make your meat stretch further. It also adds some textural variety. Cannellini or great northern beans mix well into canned tuna or ground turkey as well.
2. Add red lentils to your pasta sauce
Red lentils are one of the fastest cooking beans and come it at 5 grams of fiber per ¼ cup serving, and you can conveniently cook them in the microwave! Place lentils in a microwave safe bowl with a ratio of 1:3 lentils to water for 4 mins. Check if soft, if not continue heating in 2-minute intervals until done. Mix or blend into your pasta sauce for a boost of fiber and plant-based protein. · Bonus tip: Another way to enjoy lentils is in a refreshing Lentil Salad that is easy to meal prep and will only get more flavorful as it marinates throughout the week.
3. Don’t like oatmeal? Try baked oats
Oats have soluble fiber and oatmeal is a great breakfast option, but for those not fond of the soft texture, this Banana Blueberry Oatmeal Bake is another tasty way to meet your fiber needs!
4. Choose liquid oils over solid fats
There is an easy way to remember if a cooking fat or oil is high in saturated fat. If it is solid at room temperature, it’s high in saturated fat. This would include butter, Crisco, and coconut oil. If it’s a liquid at room temperature (like vegetable oil, olive oil, and avocado oil) then it’s lower in saturated fat.
5. Make fruit accessible
Some fruits particularly high in soluble fiber include apples, figs, and blackberries. Experiment with different ways to add fruit to your day like washing and cutting it up as soon as you get home from the grocery store, enjoying it mixed together as a fruit salad, or placing it in a bowl in a high traffic area of the house so you’re more likely to grab it.
Bonus tip: Soak fresh berries in a mix of 1 cup water and ¼ vinegar for 5 minutes to kill mold spores and bacteria that tend to make fresh berries go bad faster. Follow up with a rinse in fresh water to get rid of any lingering vinegar flavor.
Keeping cholesterol in check takes consistent effort over time. For more ideas like this to lower your cholesterol or to explore a sustainable eating plan tailored to your individual needs, book an appointment online today with one of our Avance Care Dietitians!
