A bowl of oats, with banana, is cheap, good for your heart, and keeps you full. Photo: Getty
You go to the doctor, and get a blood test to see how the kidneys and liver and so forth are functioning.
The results come in, and your cholesterol level is a little high.
You ask: “Am I on the verge of having a heart attack?”
He or she says: “No but, your risk of developing heart disease is higher.”
They suggest a change in diet, doing a bit of exercise.
Are you still listening? Too busy to even think about this … situation? It’s not an emergency, right?
And there is the cost of living to think of. And especially if you have kids. Making changes to your diet sounds like hard work, and possibly expensive.
And having an extended chat with your GP isn’t realistic. Other patients are waiting and your ten minutes are almost up.
No worries. The New Daily can help you make a few simple and cheap changes to your diet that should make a difference to your cholesterol level and heart health risk.
Cholesterol is a waxy form of fat made by the liver. It is involved with a number of important processes such as the production of vitamin D and the hormones oestrogen, testosterone and cortisol. It helps build cells in the nervous system.
Cholesterol also comes from some of the food we eat, namely animal fats from meat and dairy. It’s when we eat too much meats and dairy that cholesterol causes trouble.
There are two types of cholesterol: the high-density lipoprotein (HDL) commonly known as ‘good’ cholesterol, and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) or ‘bad’.
HDL is ‘good’ because it works to remove cholesterol from your arteries and carry it back to the liver where it’s flushed from the body.
LDL is ‘bad’ because when there is too much of it LDL accumulates as plaque in the arteries, increasing your risk of heart attacks and stroke.
The first thing you can do to keep LDL from clogging up your arteries is throw out your sugary breakfast cereals (which are probably, sadly, your childhood favourites) and eat rolled oats instead. Oats are rich in soluble fibre, the agent that will reduce tour LDL profile.
According to the Mayo Clinic: “Five to 10 grams or more of soluble fibre a day decreases your LDL cholesterol.”
A bowl of oats or oat bran provides three to four grams of soluble fibre. Add a banana for even more soluble fibre. Throw in five or six almonds and you’re doing even better.
A CHOICE review of oats found that some brands cost as little as 17 cents for 100 grams.
See here for the science of oats as a health food that remains globally under-consumed and under-produced compared to other, less healthy grains. Not only do oats support your heart health, they’ve been found to protect against cancer and aid weight loss.
For more on soluble fibre, see here.
If your doctor advises you to bring down your cholesterol levels, making this one change to your diet will certainly help get you there.
Meanwhile, here’s some more advice for you to chew upon.
These include:
Foods that contain healthy polyunsaturated fats (omega-3 and omega-6) include:
Your eyes might glaze over when reading flaxseeds etc. Fair enough. But fatty fish is a winner. And you don’t need to buy salmon fillets, or even tinned salmon. There are now terrific tinned sardines and mackerel that taste good and are good for you.
Trans fats are essentially banned in the US.
As a CHOICE study describes: “These fats are formed when liquid unsaturated vegetable oils are partially hydrogenated or ‘hardened’ during processing.”
Known as ‘industrially produced’, ‘manufactured’ or ‘artificial’ trans fats, they are common in baked goods, pre-packaged foods and some oils used for commercial frying.
Industrially produced trans fat is bad for us because it increases levels of ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol in our blood – increasing the risk of heart disease and strokes – and decreases levels of ‘good’ HDL cholesterol.
“Partially hydrogenated oils have been popular with the food industry because they help crisp up products when heated (think pies, pastries, chicken nuggets, croissants and the like) and have a longer shelf life than most other fats,” CHOICE writes.
As mentioned above, LDL ‘bad’ cholesterol isn’t just made by the body, but comes from saturated fats — such as those in meat, butter, cheese and other full-fat dairy products.
It feels like a big ask as we’re going into barbecue season to cut back on the steaks and chops and sausages.
If you can reduce consumption of saturated fats to less than seven per cent of your total daily calorie intake, your LDL cholesterol will be cut by 8-10 per cent.
One of the simplest tweaks you can make to your fat consumption is to dump butter and use olive oil instead.
Olive oil is super heart-friendly, and apart from use in cooking and salad dressings, is great on bread before you add your Vegemite or whatever.
Many people will go “yuck” at this suggestion. And you may ignore all advice in this story.
But at your next check-up, when your cholesterol level is even higher, along with your risk of a heart attack or stroke, maybe then try these tweaks: olive instead of butter, and oats instead of packaged cereals.
By the way, olive oil and butter cost about the same.