Heart-healthy eating

What you eat affects your weight, your cholesterol, your blood sugar and your blood pressure. It’s not about giving up the foods you like, but about making better choices and cooking differently.

Choose better

• Fruits and vegetables every day. They give you fiber, vitamins and minerals, and they have almost no fat.
• Legumes at least twice a week: beans, lentils, chickpeas or peas.
• Lean meats. Beef, chicken or fish with no visible fat, in moderate portions.
• Skim dairy: low-fat milk, yogurt or kumis (a fermented milk drink), queso campesino (fresh farmer’s cheese) or cuajada (fresh curd cheese).
• Fiber: oats, guava, apple, pear, carrot and squash help lower cholesterol.
• Less salt. The recommended amount for an adult is less than 5 grams a day, about one teaspoon, counting the salt that foods already have. Take the salt shaker off the table.

Limit

• Fatty meats, cold cuts and sausages, butter and whole-milk dairy.
• Packaged foods, cookies, snacks and products with palm oil or coconut oil.
• Organ meats, only once in a while.

Cook differently

• Bake, grill, steam or stew your food instead of frying it.
• Use a small amount of canola, sunflower, soybean or olive oil instead of butter or margarine.
• Add flavor with herbs and natural seasonings: bay leaf, thyme, onion, garlic and color (annatto seasoning).