Nutrition And Diet In Heart Disease

All diseases require the heart to exert a certain amount of effort. With the flu or angina, you can already tell that lifestyle can also be a burden or relief for the heart, and nutrition contributes to this. Overeating is an imposition on the soul; you should keep a slim and sporty line throughout your life.

Low Salt In Heart Disease

Heart patients should be given fruit every day because it is a good source of vitamins and contains large amounts of potassium. If you don’t know how to find the right amount of calories for your body, you are welcome to consult your doctor because there are significant individual differences. Sometimes it is also necessary to do something about excessive appetite with the help of certain medications. But you can also learn to curb your appetite without medication because the stomach adjusts to a certain amount over time. The heart, however, reacts sensitively to too much salt or liquid in the Diet, especially when it is already in need of rest. 

The top priority must therefore be little salt and moderate liquid. The Diet of a healthy person will usually contain 10 grams of salt, sometimes more. A heart patient must learn to limit this amount to 3 to 5 grams and even less on strict diets. Here you can apply the mnemonic again: Salt must disappear from the kitchen and dining table. Our food contains so much salt that we cannot get deficient because sodium and chlorine, the components of table salt, are among the vital building blocks of our body and nature in general and are therefore so common. The demand for table salt restrictions often has to be extended to certain foods, such as smoked, cured, marinated meat and fish products, sausage and ham, salads, and canned meat and fish. 

This includes soups and bouillon cubes. Butter and most types of margarine, unfortunately also bread and cheese, are usually made with salt and are often not suitable for heart patients who have to stick strictly to their Diet. In such cases, it is advisable to agree with the baker to make a few loaves of bread a week without adding salt and reserve them for the patient to buy. The same goes for the butcher. However, it is often easier to find these products in a diet section of health food stores or supermarkets in the latter case.

Low Fat In Heart Disease

Since the heart patient should not consume large amounts of fat (if only to avoid becoming overweight), it is advisable to use about 10 to 20 grams of butter daily for spreading the bread and an additional quantity of fat of 40 to 50 grams either in the form of Diet or low-fat margarine or in the form of olive oil (or safflower oil ). Especially in recent years, we have learned that the intake of vegetable oils instead of animal fats works against arteriosclerosis. What about the protein for the heart patient? He can consume the amount that is beneficial for a healthy person. 

That’s about 150 to 200 grams of fish or meat for lunch and meat in tartare (shaved meat, beefsteak mince) in the evening without salt, seasoned only with herbs. Meatloaf, Sauerbraten, or low-salt fish dishes can also be eaten. Of course, game and chicken, veal and pork, but the latter without fat. Eggs can also be prepared in many different ways, without or only with a few crumbs of salt, as a topping, as the main course, or for supper. Eggs can also be used to make mayonnaise and dressing without table salt. A significant and very cheap source of protein is milk, which unfortunately has a very high salt content. 

For this reason, however, it does not need to be eliminated from the heart patient’s Diet. About 1/4 liter daily is allowed, whereby buttermilk, yogurt, kefir, or sour milk are particularly beneficial for the patient. An important milk product is a quark, as low as possible in fat content. So it doesn’t have to be the famous butter cheese because the fat content plays a significant role here, which is undesirable for people with heart disease. Quark can now be included in the kitchen menu in various forms, sweet or spiced (but without table salt!), as a topping for bread or with linseed oil for potatoes.

Potatoes, bread, semolina, and pasta are advisable only in small amounts since larger pieces tend to cause weight gain, which is harmful to the heart. We must not forget the vegetables, which should be an essential part of the Diet. However, highly flatulent varieties such as white and savoy cabbage, red cabbage, and legumes are not recommended, as they can bloat the intestines and depress the heart. Unfortunately, cucumber salad is not the right choice either. All other varieties, fresh, frozen, or canned, but low in salt, are very beneficial. They may be steamed or stewed but are even better enjoyed raw.

Lots Of Fruits And Vegetables For Heart Disease

This category also includes fruit, which should be given to heart patients every day because it is a good resource of vitamins and contains large amounts of potassium. This ingredient helps remove harmful salt from the body while also dehydrating it. If fresh fruit is not available, compotes made from preserved fruit can also be used in small quantities or on so-called fruit or juice days. The question of the amount of liquid can be linked to the most favorable type of liquid. Black tea and herbal teas, small amounts of milk, also in the form of mixed drinks, are cheap. 

The use of lemon as an additive or in the form of a drink, and occasionally also orange juice, is highly recommended because of the vitamin richness. But today, with modern kitchen appliances, you can get practically any kind of fruit and vegetable juice and use it as a drink. The doctor must determine the daily amount himself. In the case of minor illnesses, 1 to 2 liters will still be permitted. A healthy person usually drinks about 1 to 3 liters a day. The doctor must also determine whether the patient may enjoy coffee and possibly small amounts of alcoholic beverages. 

The hardest part of the Diet for the sick heart is making tasty foods without salt. It is essential to include all the herbs in preparing the dishes above parsley, which contains a lot of vitamin C and chives, but so savory another marjoram, both fresh and dried. Carrots, celery and leek are also very suitable for seasoning. Everyone has to learn to decide for themselves whether onions are tolerated. They can cause bloating and thus inconvenience. There is nothing wrong with cloves, bay leaf, caraway, ginger, nutmeg, vanilla, cinnamon and spice grains. Pepper and paprika should only be taken in tiny quantities so that thirst is not unnecessarily aroused. 

At the same time, one must link this to the fact that too much sweetening of the food can also cause thirst. Preparing tasty meals is also a question of kitchen technology. Cooking in large amounts of liquid is not recommended as it waters down the dishes and robs the flavors of the food. Vegetables are best steamed. Meat and fish can indeed be roasted and roasted, the latter being best done on a grill. This results in tasty and wholesome dishes that can be made with very little fat, ideally even with oil. 

It is, therefore, possible, with a bit of thought and skill, to create tasty and varied dishes that do not impose an additional burden on the ailing heart and help to combat both one of the most common diseases, atherosclerosis, and one of the most severe, heart attacks. Therefore, once again, restricting the Diet – especially the amount of fat – should be pointed out. The sentence that has almost become a proclamation: “Eat with your eyes” also applies to people with heart disease. However, with the difference that they don’t have to eat as much as possible, but to enjoy their meals with joy, rest.

Also Read: SLOW AND DIFFICULT DIGESTION: REMEDIES TO DIGEST WELL

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