Reduce Your Blood Pressure By Simply Eating The Right Foods

Figures show that there are nearly 73 million adults in the US alone today suffering from high blood pressure and that more than 50,000 people will die as a result of the problem during the course of this year. Sadly, a large number of these deaths could be prevented and one of the simplest and fastest ways to lower your blood pressure is to change your eating habits.

There have been major changes in our lives in the past few years and one very significant change for most of us is seen in our diet. The days of enjoying three home-cooked meals every day are long gone and have been replaced by to a large extend with convenience and fast foods which has resulted in a variety of different problems including the rising problems of obesity and high blood pressure. Fortunately, this is a state of affairs which can be easily and quickly reversed.

There are two major difficulties with the majority of fast and convenience foods and they are fat and salt, both of which have been proven to raise your blood pressure.

Salt is added to a very large number of food during the manufacturing and packaging process to add flavor and to act as a preservative and your daily salt intake can be extremely high without you adding further salt to your food at the dinner table. Canned foods in particular frequently contain very high levels of salt as do pizza and frozen dinners, so look carefully at the label and determine just how much salt (sodium) products have in them before you buy them. Your overall daily intake of sodium should be as low as you can get it but should not be greater than 2,400 milligrams which is equivalent to about a teaspoonful.

Fat is another enemy when it comes to high blood pressure and, while a little bit of fat in your diet is good for you, high fat food ought to be avoided whenever you can. As well as fats and oils themselves (like butter, vegetable oil, margarine, lard and meat dripping) many of our favorite foods are very high in fat. look out for foods like cream, cheddar, nuts, fried chicken, pastries, corned beef, salami, ice cream, whole milk, sausages, regular ground beef, cookies, bacon, cakes, french fries, cream cheese and almost all fast foods.

At this stage you may well be thinking that this list covers almost everything you eat and that if you cut all of these out of your diet you will starve to death. Well, the good news is that nothing could be farther from the truth and that the range of foods open to you is extensive. There are two ways to deal with the problem.

The first is to just replace items in your present diet with foods which are lower in fat or salt. For instance, you might replace ordinary full-fat milk with semi-skimmed or half-fat milk and regular ground beef with ground lean beef.

The second is to add new foods into your diet and to replace some of your present high fat favorites. For instance, add more fresh fruit and vegetables into your meal plan and replace french fries with boiled or baked potatoes and rather than frying your food {try grilling|grill it. Not only is grilled meat and fish far better for you but it also tastes delicious.

High blood pressure does not need to be a problem for most people and some simply changes to what we eat can solve the problem quickly and easily.

Article Source: http://www.articlemonk.com

TheBloodPressureCenter.com provides information and advice of all aspects of controlling your blood pressure including choosing the best blood pressure monitors for use at home to selecting foods that lower blood pressure

Please Rate this Article

5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5 

Not yet Rated