5 natural foods to prevent heart disease

These foods are essential in ensuring that your heart stays healthy.

As lifestyle choices are changing, there is a rise in the number of people contracting heart diseases. Ensuring that you have a healthy heart is important and you can do so by making sure you eat right. Nutrition plays an important role in making sure that you do not burden your heart with a lot of pressure. Well-known lifestyle consultant and dietician Naini Setalvad tells us a few natural heart-healthy foods we need to include in our diet to prevent heart ailments.

Flaxseed

Mahatma Gandhi once observed, 'Wherever flaxseed becomes a regular food item among people, there will be better health.' It is a tiny seed but yet so powerful when it comes to health. Flax or 'alsi' may be relatively new as a health food but its history is very old. 10 years ago almost every western nutrition book I read, talked about one thing flaxseeds or linseeds (it has two names) and their vital importance for healthy heart functioning. It is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, preventing inflammation, thus protecting heart health. It is a wonderful way to lower cholesterol due to its amazing antioxidant properties as well as omega-3. Sprinkle it on your salad, make a chutney out of it, boil it with water or have it raw -- it helps in any form.

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Lemon

Vitamin C is a very powerful antioxidant that helps lower cholesterol and thereby keeps the heart healthy. It helps the utilisation of fat, thereby preventing cholesterol from clogging your arteries. Lemon juice helps in keeping the blood pressure low, reducing your risk of cardiovascular diseases. It is worth squeezing a lemon to make a fresh-fruit drink because lemon ranks high as a health food and contain very few calories.

Barley

Have you ever wondered which is the oldest cereal that was available to humans? According to Ayurveda it is barley. It resembles wheat grains though it is lighter in colour than wheat. It is also known as jau. It is very low in glycemic index. Pakistanis call it 'heart ki dava' (heart medicine). Well it is not surprising as it mimics niacin, which is a medicine to lower cholesterol. Barley is good for the following reasons as it keeps blood sugar level, weight and cholesterol all under control, protecting one against developing heart diseases.

Walnuts

Eating a handful of walnuts tastes great, and is a heart-healthy addition to your diet. More than a decade of scientific evidence shows that incorporating walnuts in a healthy diet reduces the risk of all major diseases like cardiovascular, high blood pressure, diabetes, cancer, asthma and arthritis. They are a good source of omega-3 fatty acids. It can raise 'good' cholesterol (HDL) to help unclog veins and arteries. Omega-3 fatty acid intake helps protect against stroke caused by plaque build-up and blood clots in the arteries that lead to the brain.

Tomato

Tomato is a good blood purifier. Nicotinic acid in tomatoes can help reduce blood cholesterol, thus helps prevent heart diseases. One of its most well-known benefits is its lycopene content, a vital antioxidant that helps in the fight against cancerous cell formation. Tomato is a treasure of nutrients, including vitamin C for immunity. As tomatoes contain all three nutrients, they are especially recommended for people with high homocysteine levels. You can have it in the form of soup, puree, salsa, gravy, chopped in salads, juice, cooked in vegetables, pulav, dals, etc.

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