Across The World

You probably know by now that eating a balanced, healthy diet is one of the best ways to look after your heart. When it comes to dietary recommendations, however, they often focus on mainstream American food habits. What if your preferred diet is Asian, Caribbean, or from elsewhere in the world? How can you modify that to be more heart friendly?

This is an important question because Black and South Asian people are often at an increased risk of heart-related problems. Heart disease, strokes, and risk factors such as cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes are more common. There are lots of possible reasons for this, but luckily there are also ways to improve outcomes.

For example, consider saturated fat, one of the big demons when it comes to health and nutrition. Indian cooking often uses ghee rather than oil, which is particularly high in the bad types of fat. In some Indian cooking, and in the Caribbean as well, coconut products such as coconut oil, coconut milk and coconut cream make frequent appearances. These are all high in fat.

You could replace ghee or coconut oil with a lower-fat option such as olive oil. If you don’t want to mess with your recipes and the flavors you know you like, you could still reduce your usage. Measure a teaspoon or tablespoon of oil rather than freely pouring it into the pan. Don’t reuse oil for deep frying because it can create a harmful chemical reaction. Try low-fat coconut milk if you don’t want to replace it with water. Use the oven or grill instead of frying.

There are a few ways that methods of cooking can make the same foods more or less healthy. Cutting back on frying or trying air frying instead is the obvious one. Steaming is better than boiling because it preserves more nutrients. Of course, using ingredients with plenty of nutrients to begin with, like fresh vegetables, is a good start.

It’s not all bad. Indian diets often feature lentils in dhal, which have a lot of nutritional value. Peas and beans in Caribbean cooking can serve a similar role. As you cut back fat and salt, increase these aspects.

These are only a few suggestions as a starting point to get you thinking. Cuisines are different around the world, but what your heart needs remains the same.

Related Posts

Heart Disease Detection

Wearables are one of the hottest things right now when it comes to monitoring your health and maybe even detecting the early signs of disease before you develop more symptoms. They can also be expensive and frustrating for those of us who wish we didn’t have to keep buying the latest tech to stay up

Read More »

New Treatment For Cardiometabolic Diseases

There are some conditions that keep coming up when we talk about long-term health issues, and many of them are linked to the heart. This includes cardiometabolic diseases, which impact our energy reserves right down to the cellular level. Researchers in this field have been taking a particular interest in an enzyme known as AMPK,

Read More »

Engineering Blood Vessels

Blood vessels are far more than merely the plumbing that runs between our important organs. They’re vital in their own right, and when they’re blocked, diseased or damaged, that can cause major, sometimes life-threatening health problems. Current options for fixing or replacing them are limited, but that could be about to change (https://longevity.technology/news/novel-approach-can-engineer-blood-vessels/). If you

Read More »
Scroll to Top