Improve Your Heart Health With Better Food Choices.

 

Making healthy eating choices is important for heart health. Even if you are exercising regularly and maintaining a healthy weight, diet plays a key role in lowering your risk of heart disease. The saying “you can’t out–train a bad diet” is true for heart health as well. You can be in great physical shape, but your risk for heart disease will likely still be high if you’re eating a diet high in salt, sugar and fat.

 

For many people, figuring out what foods are healthy can feel overwhelming. Serving sizes differ between products. Claims on food packaging can be misleading, and sometimes we don’t even know what some of the ingredients are. Once you understand how to read nutrition labels and what to look for, it becomes a whole lot easier to make informed food decisions without taking up a lot of time and energy.

 

How To Read Nutrition Labels

Nutrition labels give you a lot of information from how many calories the product contains to various nutrients like fat, sodium (salt), carbohydrates, sugar, protein, vitamins and minerals, along with an ingredients list. Where it can get tricky is which information you are looking at: amount per serving or percentage daily value.

 

• Amount per serving tells you how many calories and other nutrients are in a single portion.
• Percentage daily value tells you what that amount is as a percentage of total daily intake. This can be helpful in assessing the amount of healthy or unhealthy nutrients a product contains in terms of a daily diet. Keep in mind that this is based on 2,000 calories per day. If you eat more or less than that amount, the percentage is not going to be accurate for your personal eating plan.

 

What To Look For On Nutrition Labels

To make better eating choices, there are things to consider when reading nutrition labels.

 

1. Calories: Pay attention to how many calories a food item contains per serving. Be realistic about how many servings you would actually eat at one time. If you are comparing products, remember that the serving sizes may be different.
2. Fats: Look for foods that are low in saturated fat, and avoid products containing trans fats.
3. Sugar: Products with lower amounts of sugar (especially low or no added sugar) are better choices.
4. Fiber: Adults need at least 25 grams of fiber per day to maintain healthy cholesterol levels and gut health. Selecting high-fiber foods is a good way to reach your daily goal.
5. Protein: Getting enough protein is important to build, repair, and maintain muscles and bones in addition to being a healthy calorie source. Ensuring you eat at least the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) is advised.
6. Vitamins and Minerals: It can be difficult to track vitamins and minerals from food packaging. Focus more on eating a well-balanced diet with a wide range of fresh fruits and vegetables, whole-grains, lean protein, and healthy fats.
7. Ingredients List: When it comes to the ingredients list, less is better. Products with fewer ingredients are less processed (and healthier) than those with long ingredient lists. In addition to a shorter list, look for products that contain ingredients you recognize. Also, be on the lookout for the term “partially hydrogenated oil.” This means the product contains trans fat, even if it says 0g on the nutrition label. Products that have less than 0.5g of trans fat per serving are not required to list it.

 

Other Helpful Hints

Making healthier choices doesn’t have to be overwhelming when you are armed with the right know-how. In addition to understanding food labels, there are some other easy ways to make grocery shopping healthier and hassle-free.

 

• Focus your shopping on the perimeter of the store. These are the aisles where you’ll find the least processed foods like fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy.
• Read nutrition labels rather than choosing a product solely on the claims on the front of the package. These claims are sometimes misleading.
• Choose products with the shortest ingredients list, ideally with ingredients you recognize.
• Go prepared with a shopping list of healthy foods.
• Don’t shop when you are hungry to avoid impulse-buys.

 

The team at Advanced Cardiovascular Specialists consists of North Louisiana’s leading experts in cardiovascular care. For more information or to schedule an appointment, please call our office at (318) 798-9400.