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Fortnightly HeartHealth Tips:Your first tip is shown below. If you would like to receive a tip such as this every month, as a FREE service from American HeartHealth Services, please enter your email below so that we can send it to you. Please be confident that we will NOT DIVULGE your name or email address to anyone.
The HeartHealth Tips will cover topics ranging from:
- New products on the market for heart health (from all over the world);
- Tips on how to choose “heart-wisely” when eating out, from types of restaurants to types of food in them;
- Cooking tips and suggestions for making normally “bad for you” foods without the “bad”—and that still taste good!
- Reports on current research being published relating to various treatments and medicines and their effectiveness (or lack thereof) and risks or contraindications;
- Listing of other resources, websites, or associations related to heart health and heart illness issues;
- Reports on public and private companies which are developing heart related products and technology.
- Some humor since they do say that “Laughter is the best medicine!!! ”
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I have been told that it is easy to tell which food has the saturated fat in it, and which does not….. If it tastes good… DON'T EAT IT!!!!
However, these days, if you are willing to jump through a few hoops when cooking at home, there are substitutes which make many foods significantly more tolerable, even for people like myself who really watch our fat (and especially saturated fat and trans fat) intake very very carefully.
You probably know already from your reading that meats are generally high in saturated fats, so reducing or eliminating red meat is a start—chicken is moderately better than red meat, and fish (even crustaceans with higher cholesterol in them) is the best. Certain fish have high omega 3 fish oils which are considered by many to actually have a positive effect on heart health.
If you are pan frying fish (or stir-frying vegetables, for that matter), using olive oil makes this a dish that is generally good for your heart instead of bad for it. Olive oil has a relatively low burning point, though, so it may smoke a bit and you’ll need to keep the temperature a bit lower than normal. Alternatively, you can find avocado oil which can tolerate a higher temperature before getting smoky… and it has absolutely no unusual taste associated with it. You can also experiment with certain fake butters currently on the market… there is one product which has NO fat (it works ok on toast, but pretty bad when it comes to frying) called Fat Free I Can’t believe It’s Not Butter® and another few that have sterols and use soybean extract (these have some fat, a smaller amount of saturated fat, and no Trans fatty acids) such as Take Control Light® which some people believe is helpful… these products can be used for frying fairly effectively. Just put a tablespoon or two of any of these oils or fake butter in a frying pan, and then dredge shrimp, scallops, or any fish fillets in a light coating of flour (and spices as you choose) and cook for a few minutes per side (a little less for scallops as they get tougher with cooking). This gives a nice tasty and browned outside to all these dishes, without adding any of the bad stuff! Try it.
While we are on the topic of frying, there is a new potato chip product on the market that I’ve discovered that actually tastes very good and has NO fat…. I was quite skeptical about this until I tried them… RufflesWow® potato chips in varieties such as Doritos® and Lays®-- they have 1/2 the calories and absolutely no fat, no saturated fat, no cholesterol, etc… they are made with a patented cottonseed oil and they taste fried and crispy!!!
I still haven’t come up with acceptable French fries, however! I suspect that deep frying is another story altogether!
I’ll keep you posted on tasty solutions (as opposed to trying to make you like foods that you never used to eat!) as I find them. In the meantime, of course, try to like your vegetables, fruits, and rice & beans… there are some very interesting and tasty ways of spicing them up as well. That’s for another time.
Our next American HeartHealth Tip will discuss the recent Journal of American Medical Association article which revised their attitude about vitamins… they have gone from a stance of recommending proper diet and no vitamins to a new opinion which is proper diet AND vitamins… see what they have to say and WHY they have changed their mind… all in the next Tip next month.
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