How to Keep Your Heart Happy
by Niamh Lonergan | 25th Feb 2021
How to Keep Your Heart Happy
With February being World Heart Month, we thought we would end the month with some simple tips to ensure your heart stays healthy and happy.
What you eat can either protect you or increase your chances of getting heart disease or having a stroke. A healthy diet can stop you from gaining weight, reduce high blood pressure and help lower your cholesterol levels. Here are some tips for How to Keep Your Heart Happy.
Eat your Fruit and Veg
Fruits and vegetables are an essential part of a heart healthy diet. Aim to get your 5-7 portions of fruit and veg a day. Our 300kcal sides are a great way to add some vegetables into your main meal, such as the Asian Green Vegetables, Green Superfood Salad or Sweet Potato Mash with Spinach & Green Beans. Choosing fresh or dried fruit as snack is another low-calorie way of introducing more portions of fruit into your day.
Choose Wholegrains
Wholegrains are an important part of a heart-healthy diet as they are high in fibre. It is recommended that we eat 24-35g fibre a day but sadly most people in Ireland do not reach the recommended intake.
Simple ways to get more fibre into your diet include choosing wholegrain carbohydrate sources such as wholewheat pasta, brown rice, wholegrain bread. The skins of vegetables are also high in fibre, so leave the skin on those potatoes! Beans and lentils are other high fibre sources that can be used to bulk out your meals and also add some protein into plant-based meals.
Include Fish, Nuts and Seeds
Omega 3 is a family of fats that helps to keep your heart healthy and lower the risk of heart disease. We should aim to eat two portions of fish per week, one of which should be oily fish as oily fish is rich in omega 3. Other foods high in omega 3 include nuts, seeds, soya and soya products, e.g. beans, milk and tofu and green leafy vegetables. Walnuts are the VIP of nuts when it comes to heart health as they are the best plant-based sources of omega 3s.
Saturated < Unsaturated Fats
We all need some fat in our diet. In fact, it’s essential for good health. However, swapping saturated fats for unsaturated fats can help to reduce cholesterol and improve our heart health. Saturated fats are found in animal foods such as red meat and processed meats as well as cream, butter, cakes and biscuits. Eating too much of these foods can cause an increase in LDL cholesterol (the bad one) which is bad for your heart.
When cooking with oil, use only very small amounts and choose olive oil or rapeseed oil instead of butter or coconut oil. Making changes to your cooking methods can also make a difference in the nutritional value of your meal. Why not steam, bake, grill and boil instead of frying, deep frying or roasting!
Reduce Salt Intake
Too much salt in our diet can cause high blood pressure which puts a strain on our heart. Eating less salt doesn’t mean that our food has to be bland- try to flavour foods with spices, herbs, garlic and onion instead of salt. Eating less ready-made and processed foods will also help to reduce your salt intake. And take that saltshaker off the table!
Sleep for your Heart
Getting enough good quality sleep is important for heart health and overall wellbeing. Aim for between 7-9 hours of sleep every night. If you struggle with sleep try making some small changes to your night-time routine such as reducing screen time before bed, avoid snacking on high sugar/salt foods before bed, avoid caffeine in the evenings and get enough exercise in throughout the day.
Maintaining a Healthy Weight
Our Diet Tool will help you to determine if you are a healthy weight by calculating your body mass index (BMI). Waist circumference is also an important measurement as central adiposity (fat around the stomach) can increase your risk of heart diseases. Other lifestyle factors that are important for a healthy heart include physical activity, stopping smoking and reducing alcohol consumption.
Plant-based Diets and Heart Health
There are many characteristics of a plant-based diet that are beneficial for heart health. This includes the high fibre content, low calorie density, low saturated fat content and anti-inflammatory properties.
The Mediterranean diet is a particular plant-based diet that has been hailed as the optimum heart-healthy diet. This diet focuses on eating lots of vegetables, fruits, grains, legumes, nuts, olive oil and low to moderate consumption of fish. It also limits the consumption of red meat, processed meats and sugary foods.
Our vegetarian range can help you to easily make heart-healthy plant-based choices. Some of our popular plant-based dishes include Super Veg Lasagne, Vegetarian Noodles and Vegan Thai Red Curry.