Heart Health: What to Eat Continued

First, I found a few places that have some amazing recipe indexes geared specifically towards Heart Health! I can’t wait to try some of these!

Mayo Clinic’s Heart Health Recipe Index

NHLBI Heart Health Pamphlet with lots of info/recipes

After posting the majority of the heart healthy foods yesterday, I though I would just go over some cooking / eating tips today:

  • Watch your serving sizes. While eating the right foods are important, eating too much of anything is still not a great idea – for your body or your heart.
  • Get to reading labels if you don’t already! There are lots of products now marked with an AHA logo, which helps.ahalogo
  • While reading labels, make sure to look at the sodium, cholesterol, and fat – both the amounts and the types of fat. Speaking of which, I thought this was super cute. Meet Mon and Poly from the AHA! There’s a webisode from them, menus, all kinds of stuff! There are also the Bad Fat Brothers, as well  :)monandpoly
  • The fresher – the better. Foods that aren’t processed much before we cook / eat them typically don’t have “ingredient lists”. Food for thought?
  • Make the best choice available. I was reading “Fit From Within” by Victoria Moran on the way to work this morning and happened to be on this chapter:

She wrote the following:

This is the wisest dietary advice I know: Make the best possible choices from those available. When you have a say in the matter, put yourself in situations where there is an abundance of good choices – markets with colorful produce and fresh, high-quality staples and restaurants where choice foods are used to create lovely dishes. But, life being what it is, many times you won’t be in such lofty environs. You’ll have to make the best possible choice from a selection that might not be stellar….Whether you’re at a truck stop in rural Iowa, an exquisite French restaurant, a food court at Disney World, or some prefabricated purveyor of fast food on the interstate, you can’t go wrong by choosing the best from what is available. This starts a habit pattern that will pay dividends for you all your life…”Best” has numerous components: nutrition, taste, price, aesthetics. It evolves; what you learn today could make yesterday’s best obsolete. It is also an individual call.

So, in honor of choosing my best, I will go ahead and let you know what my lunch will be  :) We’re going out with some coworkers, so no pictures, sadly.

We’re going to this awesome burger joint/bar downtown. I am getting a buffalo burger (lean and good!) on a wheat bun (better than white) and a side salad instead of fries or tots.

The best choice ever? Probably not. But it’s the best choice available today.

9 comments

  1. haha mon and poly are so cute.

    enjoy your lunch — excellent job making the “best choice available”!

  2. I love the concept of making the “best” choice. That seems like a very healthy approach and is good food for thought.

  3. Great post!
    I’ve never had a buffalo burger. does it taste like a regular red meat burger?

    • Danielle: I think they taste pretty similar, especially to a leaner beef burger. They’re not really greasy, but still have that great “burger” taste.

  4. I rarely remember to look at sodium — good reminder! And I LOVE Fit from Within . . . I carried it around with me for about six months :-)

  5. Oh man, this was my reasoning for my dinner today! Thanks for sharing this and enjoy that delicious, well-chosen burger :)

  6. Hoooray for making the best choice available. I hope you enjoyed the lunch!

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