Nutrition and Cardiovascular Health

What Is Heart-Healthy Eating?

Excerpted from “Heart Healthy Eating,” by the Office of Women’s Health (www.womenshealth.gov), January 1, 2008.

Why do I need to be concerned about heart healthy eating?

      What you eat affects your risk for having heart disease and poor blood circulation, which can lead to a heart attack or stroke. Heart disease is the number one killer and stroke is the number three killer of American women and men.

In the main type of heart disease, a fatty substance called plaque builds up in the arteries that bring oxygen-rich blood to the heart. Over time, this buildup causes the arteries to narrow and harden. When this happens, the heart does not get all the blood it needs to work properly. The result can be chest pain or a heart attack.

Most cases of stroke occur when a blood vessel bringing blood to the brain becomes blocked. The underlying condition for this type of blockage is having fatty deposits lining the vessel walls.

What foods should I eat to help prevent heart disease and

stroke?

You should eat mainly the following:

• Fruits and vegetables

• Grains (at least half of your grains should be whole grains, such as whole wheat, whole oats, oatmeal, whole-grain corn, brown rice, wild rice, whole rye, whole-grain barley, buckwheat, bulgur, millet, quinoa, and sorghum)

• Fat-free or low-fat versions of milk, cheese, yogurt, and other milk products

• Fish, skinless poultry, lean meats, dry beans, eggs, and nuts

• Polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats (found in fish, nuts, and vegetable oils)

Also, you should limit the amount of foods you eat that contain the following:

• Saturated fat (found in foods such as fatty cuts of meat, whole milk, cheese made from whole milk, ice cream, sherbet, frozen yogurt, butter, lard, cakes, cookies, doughnuts, sausage, regular mayonnaise, coconut, palm oil)

• Trans fat (found mainly in processed foods such as cakes, cookies, crackers, pies, stick or hard margarine, potato chips, corn chips)

• Cholesterol (found in foods such as liver, chicken and turkey giblets, pork, sausage, whole milk, cheese made from whole milk, ice cream, sherbet, frozen yogurt)

• Sodium (found in salt and baking soda)

• Added sugars (such as corn syrup, corn sweetener, fructose, glucose, sucrose, dextrose, lactose, maltose, honey, molasses, raw sugar, invert sugar, malt syrup, syrup, caramel, and fruit juice concentrates)

Eating lots of saturated fat, trans fat, and cholesterol may cause plaque buildup in your arteries. Eating lots of sodium may cause you to develop high blood pressure, also called hypertension. Eating lots of added sugars may cause you to develop type 2 diabetes. Both hypertension and diabetes increase your risk of heart disease and stroke.

How can I tell how much saturated fat, trans fat, and

other substances are in the foods I eat?

Prepared foods that come in packages—such as breads, cereals, canned and frozen foods, snacks, desserts, and drinks—have a Nutrition Facts label on the package. The label states how many calories and how much saturated fat, trans fat, and other substances are in each serving. For information on how to read a Nutrition Facts label, see the Fitness and Nutrition section of womenshealth.gov.

For food that does not have a Nutrition Facts label, such as fresh salmon or a raw apple, you can use the U.S. Department of Agriculure (USDA) National Nutrient Database. This is a bit harder than using the Nutrition Facts label. But by comparing different foods you can get an idea if a food is high or low in saturated fat, sodium, and other substances. To compare lots of different foods at one time, check out the Nutrient Lists.