Heart disease accounts for nearly one-third of all deaths worldwide

Diet plays a major role in heart health and can impact your risk of heart disease.

In fact, certain foods can influence blood pressure, triglycerides, cholesterol levels and inflammation, all of which are risk factors for heart disease.

Diana Steele, BSc, RD, discusses How to Reduce Sodium in Your Diet

Dr. Milan Gupta, MD, FRCPC, Cardiologist, discusses How to Control LDL or ‘Bad’ Cholesterol in Your Life

Diana Steele, BSc, RD, discusses how to reduce saturated fats.

Diana Steele, BSc, RD, discusses the dangers of high tryglerides.

If you have high blood pressure or you’re trying to reduce your sodium intake there are several choices you can make to reduce your sodium intake.

The average Canadian is consuming way more sodium than they should be, and a low sodium diet contains only 1500 milligrams, and that’s quite difficult to achieve through diet.

One of the things you can start with is to cook from scratch more often. Rather than choosing rices and pastas that have sauces already on them, cook them from scratch at home.

Try to choose more fresh or frozen items such as fresh fruits and vegetables rather than tinned vegetables and fruit. And if you choose to have tinned beans make sure you’re rinsing off the extra sodium.

For snack foods, try to avoid salted nuts and chips and choose air-popped popcorn instead. And finally, when you’re eating out, ask for less salt and be sure not to use the salt at the table.

For more information on how to lower your sodium intake, contact your local registered dietitian.

Presenter: Ms. Diana Steele, Registered Dietitian, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Registered Dietitian

If you’ve been diagnosed with high LDL cholesterol or you’re just trying to make some heart healthy choices, there are several things you can do with your diet, in particular, lowering your dietary saturated fat.

To do that you should try to aim for lower fat animal products. This will help lower your saturated fat. Choose extra lean ground beef, take off the skin from your chicken and choose meats that are less marbled.

You can also add more fish and nuts and seeds as well as choosing vegetarian meals such as beans, and lentils and chickpeas. And try to get rid of some of those high fat deli meats such as bacon, sausages and salami.

You can also reduce your choice of high fat creamy sauces and choose more tomato sauces instead. And finally, limit your egg yolks. If you can limit egg yolks to only two per week, you’ll lower your saturated fat intake and your cholesterol.

If you’d like more information on how you can lower your saturated fat intake, you can contact your local registered dietitian.

Presenter: Ms. Diana Steele, Registered Dietitian, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Registered Dietitian

If you have high triglycerides, or you’re trying to lower your LDL cholesterol, you can increase your intake of omega 3 fats.

Omega 3 fats are found in fatty fish. This would be salmon, halibut, tuna, trout, mackerel, sardines, and herring.

You can also increase your intake of nuts and seeds, and in particular, pumpkin seeds and walnuts, as well as flax seeds, and of course adding in more vegetable oils and trying to cook with liquid oils instead of solid fats can increase your omega 3s. Try more olive oil, canola oil, grape seed oil, as well as some nut oils like walnut oil.

If you’d like to find out more about how to increase your omega 3 fatty acid intake, contact your local registered dietitian.

Presenter: Ms. Diana Steele, Registered Dietitian, Vancouver, BC

Local Practitioners: Registered Dietitian