When it comes to keeping your heart healthy, there’s no better place to start than your diet. We are what we eat, after all, and consuming too much of the tasty and convenient stuff—such as fast food, salty snacks, and sugary drinks—have been proven to cause no end of health problems. Some of these problems are so serious that they can affect your heart directly, which could send you to the hospital, or worse, the morgue.
So with preventing that morbid fate in mind, here are some heart-healthy foods you should definitely look into including into your diet.
Walnut milk. If you want to look after your heart while still indulging in some creamy and delicious milky goodness, then there’s no better way to do that than to add unsweetened milked nuts to your diet. Specifically, unsweetened walnut milk. Walnuts are known to have a generous amount of plant-derived omega-3 fats, which have been proven to be beneficial in keeping heart disease at bay and improve overall heart health. What’s more, the nutrients in walnuts such as magnesium, calcium, and iron also help give you more energy while improving your bodily functions. So get into the heart-healthy kick in a creamy and tasty way by adding nut-based milks to your daily food intake.
Green leafy vegetables. Ever since we went to school, we’ve always been told that a healthy diet includes vegetables, mainly the green and leafy kind. It won’t surprise you to know that our teachers have always been right to do so. Not only do green leafy vegetables give us a lot of vitamins and minerals to help us grow healthy and strong, but they also help keep major health issues like heart disease at bay. The vitamin K in greens, for example, protects your arteries and helps promote good blood clotting. Meanwhile, the dietary nitrates in vegetables also help reduce blood pressure and keep arteries flexible, preventing strokes, heart attacks and arterial ruptures.
Whole grains. Whole grains are grain products that have gone through very little refinement or processing as possible—i.e. they contain all three parts of the grain, namely the germ, endosperm, and bran. Unless the grain product you’re buying contains the words “whole grain”, or “whole” when it comes to wheat, then it can’t be considered as whole.
Why is this distinction important? It’s important because whole grain is much healthier than refined grains, especially for the heart. For one, whole grains have a higher amount of fiber, which has been proven to help lower LDL cholesterol. High levels of LDL cholesterol, or “bad” cholesterol, is linked to many heart diseases and circulatory conditions.
Studies have also shown that eating three servings or more of whole grains every day can significantly reduce systolic blood pressure by as much as 6 mmHg. This is enough to reduce the risk of stroke by about 25%, as well as significantly decrease the incidence of heart attacks.
Fatty fish. If you’re a seafood fan and love fatty fish like salmon, mackerel, and tuna, then you’re in luck, as consuming these tasty fish regularly can definitely protect your heart from all sorts of diseases and conditions. This is because fatty fish is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, which has been linked not only to reduce blood pressure but also decrease heart disease markers such as cholesterol, triglycerides, and blood sugar. So have these fish as often as you like—just remember to prepare them in a healthy way, like roasting, streaming, or stir-frying. No deep-frying allowed!
Beans. Besides having a reputation as “the musical fruit”, beans are as healthy as they are tasty. A healthy serving contains quite a bit of what’s known as “resistant starch”, which is known to resist being digested. It instead gets fermented by the beneficial bacteria in your intestines. This allows the resistant starch to work its magic in your body by reducing cholesterol and triglycerides in your blood, both of which are known to affect heart health in high levels. Resistant starch has also been discovered to stabilize blood sugar, yet another marker for heart and circulatory disease.
Conclusion
Don’t take your heart for granted. Include these heart-healthy foods in your diet right away to protect the most vital organ in your body from all manner of health conditions and diseases. Doing so will help you live a full and happy life.
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