There are many foods that should be avoided or limited if you have high cholesterol levels. These foods for the most part are those who have high fat contents. Many of these foods are either foods that are products that are meats or animal by products. Foods that come from animals or animal by products such as milk, eggs and cheese are those that contain high cholesterol content. In fact eggs have one of the highest amounts of cholesterol in them.
The first types of foods that would need to be avoided for people who want to lower their cholesterol levels would be organ meats such as kidneys, liver, and brains, shellfish such as lobster, oysters, and shrimp, whole fat dairy products such as butter, cream, and milk, eggs, ice cream, fatty poultry such as ducks and geese.
Next you need to watch for foods that have large amounts of saturated fats in them. These types of fats will raise the amount of LDL cholesterol in the body. This is the harmful type of cholesterol and the type of cholesterol that you want to limit or lower in your numbers. The USDA recommends that a person limit saturated fats to less than 10% of their daily diet for healthy living. For those who have high cholesterol, it is recommended to limit saturated fat content to less than 7 % of their daily caloric intake. Some of the oils that we cook with are full of saturated fat and need to be limited. These oils are coconut oil, palm oil, and palm kernel oil. Foods that are naturally high in saturated fat include beef, processed meats such as lunch meat, hot dogs, bologna, sausage, and bacon, whole fat dairy products, and baked goods that have been baked from white flour.
Other foods that need to be limited in the diet that are high in cholesterol contain trans fatty acids. These trans fatty acids contain more cholesterol than even saturated fats. These fatty acids are in things such as potato chips and professionally baked goods or fast foods such as french fries. Junk food like Ding dongs fall into this category. To find out if processed foods have trans fatty acids in them look at the labels. If the labels read hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils then they are full of trans fatty acids and should be avoided or severely limited in the diet.
Next we need to talk about the preparation of food in the diet. It is not enough to know which types of foods to eat but one must know how to prepare the right types of foods as well. Vegetables and fruits should be eaten fresh or boiled, boiled, broiled, or stir fried. Pan frying or breading and frying should be done as a last resort for vegetables or meat as this adds a lot of fat and oils as well as cholesterol to the dish.
If oil is used for cooking, canola or other oils that are low in fat should be used for cooking. PAM or other types of spray should be used to coat cooking utensils instead of margarine or butter to limit the intake of oils, butter and margarine in the diet. This will help to reduce the amount of oils and butters in the diet and help to reduce the amount of cholesterol in the daily diet as well. There are many reduced fat or fat free substitutes for foods today at the market that are available for most foods that can be purchased for those who have dietary restrictions so that you do not have to give up flavor anymore when you are on a restricted diet anymore!
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