All my nutrition education life, I was asked to give a complex carbohydrate and low fat diet to a heart patient.
Foods like whole cereals- wheat, bajra, jowar, nachni, oats, rice, whole pulses, vegetable oils in limit and completely avoid ghee, cheese butter, cream or full cream milk were suggested. In fact low fat, multigrain variety was recommended like skimmed milk, low fat butter and multigrain biscuits respectively.
This misleading link between ‘’Low Fat’’ and ‘’Cholesterol’’ created a boom in the world; just to make big profits.
A detailed blog ‘’ Why We Got Fatter During The Fat-Free Food Boom’’ explains the story clearly.
New York best seller book ‘’good calories bad calories’’ is a collection of publications, case studies and proofs on how the society turned fat with time because of misleading informations.
Honestly, most of them never had enough fats in the diet like cheese, cream, butter or ghee before getting a heart disease or hyper- cholesterol. Their diet was quite rich in refined oils, refined flours, multigrain, low fat variety.
Some of them surely had a bad diet, full or processed cheese, processed butter, meat and foods fried in refined oils but some of them, consumed only homemade healthy carbohydrates like whole cereals, fruits, and pulses and still complained of hyper cholesterol issues.
Unknowingly, its excess Carbohydrate and transfat that leads to Hyper cholesterol and Heart Disease and not the healthy saturated fats like ghee, fresh home- made cream, white butter, etc.
HOW DOES CARBOHYDRATE INCREASE CHOLESTEROL?
Carbohydrate whether coming from sugar or wheat or rice, both gets converted to glucose in blood. Firstly the glucose, fills up the glycogen stores in the muscles then use it for brain functioning. The excess then fills the liver which is responsible to produce bad cholesterol (commonly called as fatty liver).
In 1970s, the economic growth of the food industries created havoc in the society about how saturated fat and arteriosclerosis are associated with each other. There popped up, the low fat variety which was secretly replaced with hidden sugar in all the packed foods.
You can watch ‘THE SECRETS OF SUGAR DOCUMENTARY’ which shows you the insight about all the misleading ways the food industries followed.
As per European Journal of Nutrition reviewed paper, people who consumed more of full fat variety had less weight gain; were less likely to develop heart disease or type 2 diabetes in comparison to the ones who consumed low fat variety.
Some of the studies that show relation between fats and cholesterol and how to reduce cholesterol with low carb diet:
- Meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies evaluating the association of saturated fat with cardiovascular disease
- Saturated fat does not clog the arteries: coronary heart disease is a chronic inflammatory condition, the risk of which can be effectively reduced from healthy lifestyle interventions
- Does saturated fat clog your arteries? Controversial paper says ‘no’
- Saturated Fats ‘Do Not Clog Arteries And Cause Heart Disease’, Cardiologists Claim
- Saturated fat SHOCK: Cardiologists claim warnings it clogs arteries are ‘plain WRONG’
- Why Full-Fat Dairy May Be Healthier Than Low-Fat
HOW TO REDUCE CHOLESTEROL? ACTION PLAN
Completely avoid sugar, honey, jaggery, refined flours like biscuits, breads, fruit juices, syrups or packed foods.
- Have only healthy carbohydrates like whole cereals, whole pulses (pulses are high carbohydrate), fruits (only post workout) but limit them to only 25-30% of the diet.
- Replace refined oils with filtered oils like peanuts, olive, mustard or coconut oil or ghee.
- Never have low fat modified foods like low fat butter or cheese or skimmed milk.
- Foods that lower cholesterol: Have only full fat variety like full cream milk, unprocessed cheese, homemade white butter, fresh cream, fish, and nuts.
- Egg yolk is healthy cholesterol. Don’t get hesitant eating it.
- Never deep fry foods. Limit ghee or oil to only 2-3 tsp per day.
Important: if you are still confused about your meal planning on how to reduce cholesterol naturally, then you can join in my incredible personal mentoring program.
PS: Don’t forget to share this valuable information with all the ones around you as we are here to make the world a better place to live in.
Thank you so much shikha mam. Best part of your blog is magical action plans!
My gratitude to you dear :*
Really an amazing blog to us. Thank you so much for your valuable thought provoking health-related ideas.
Cheers!!
Megha
Thank you so much Megha 😀
Do share this information with all your friends and family.