Quick and Easy Breakfast I thought it would be a good idea to do a breakfast post. A major factor in controlling heart disease is controlling cholesterol, and Breakfast offers many options to be the biggest cholesterol-fighting meal of the day. Of course, there is good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, you want to increase one and reduce the other. Berries are really good for this, and Blueberries, in particular, are easy for me to eat by the handful. Whole grains are also great for both of these, but the time-honoured ingredient for scraping out the bad cholesterol is Whole Oats. It says so right on the front of the Cheerios box! Plain Cheerios, not the sugar-frosted kinds. Easy breakfasts An aside about Cheerios, Multigrain Cheerios are about equal to Honey Nut Cheerios health-wise. Looking at the nutrition label, they're almost identical. That's because they're frosted with the same amount of sugar. Since my visit to the hospital I've learned how to enjoy plain...
Takeout Shawarma One of my favourite bad-for-me fast foods that I enjoyed before the heart attack is Shawarma, and Shawarma Poutine if I was feeling especially indulgent, but normally over turmeric rice with lots of garlic sauce and hot sauce. Early in the pandemic when we were still nervous about takeout, I found a recipe to make shawarma at home. It was as close to takeout as I could want; the turmeric rice was a little spicier than what I'd get normally, but it was good too. However, chicken shawarma is made with chicken thigh mostly, one of the fattiest cuts. This helps keep it moist. I've been told by the heart people to stick to white meat, and no skin. It also has a pile of oils. The turmeric rice is full of butter. And all versions are quite high in sodium, which I also need to manage. It's not the worst thing I could eat, but it's also not too great. So I was preparing to give up on shawarma. But then I started this project and decided to start by huntin...
Salmon I have always avoided cooking fish. Maybe I just haven't found good fish recipes, maybe I don't like getting that fishy funk out of my cast iron now and then. (Just need a little baking soda, it's not so bad). I do love sushi though. In my search for info about creating a heart-healthy menu, one thing that comes up over and over is the need to have at least one fish meal per week, but maybe two depending on which website you ask, including the Heart and Stroke Foundation. Certain types of fish are very high in unsaturated fats known as Omega-3 fatty acids. In a previous post, I mentioned that there are good fats, not-so-good fats, and superbad fats. Good fats include mono and polyunsaturated fats, and this includes omega-3 fatty acids. Omega-3s: Reduce inflammation Reduce blood pressure Controls clotting Decrease Triglycerides All together these benefits reduce your overall risk of strokes and heart attacks. So Fish are our friends, as Bruce the Shark says in Fi...
Great recipes Kevin, I will try more than one:)
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