Heart Healthy Eating

Frequently Asked Questions

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

• What foods should I eat to help prevent heart disease and stroke?

• How can I tell how much saturated fat, trans fat, and other substances are in the foods I eat?

• Are there eating plans that can help me choose foods that are good for my heart?

• How do these eating plans work?

• I've heard that eating fish is good for my heart. Why is that?

• Is drinking alcohol bad for my heart?

• I need help working out an eating plan that's right for me. Who can I ask for help?

• Besides eating healthy foods, what else can I do to keep my heart healthy?

• For More Information

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 1 killer and stroke is the number 3 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.

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What foods should I eat to help prevent heart disease and stroke?

You should eat mainly:

• 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 (pol-ee-uhn-SACH-uh-ray-tid) and monounsaturated (mon-oh-uhn-SACH-uh-ray-tid) fats (found in fish, nuts, and vegetable oils)

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

• 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 (koh-LESS-tur-ol) (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 Agriculture (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.

What is a calorie?

When talking about a calorie in food, it is a measure of the energy that the food supplies to your body. When talking about burning calories during physical activity, a calorie is a measure of the energy used by your body. To maintain the same body weight, the number of food calories you eat during the day should be about the same as the number of calories your body uses.

The number of calories you should eat each day depends on your age, sex, body size, how physically active you are, and other conditions. For instance, a woman between the ages of 31 and 50 who is of normal weight and moderately active should eat about 2,000 calories each day.

v     For more details visit:

1)      http://www.nal.usda.gov/fnic/foodcomp/search

2)      http://www.ars.usda.gov/main/docs.htm?docid=15869

3)      http://www.womenshealth.gov/fitnessnutrition