By Anne-Marie Nichols of My Readable Feast

According to Health.com the 10 best foods for your heart are:

1. Oatmeal - full of fiber which can lower levels of bad LDL cholesterol and help keep arteries clear. It’s also full of omega-3 fatty acids, folate, and potassium, which are all important for heart health.

2. Salmon - high in omega-3 fatty acids.

3. Avocado - packed with monounsaturated fat that helps lower LDL levels while raising the amount of HDL cholesterol in your body. Eating avocados also allow for the absorption of carotenoids like beta-carotene and lycopene, which are essential for heart health.

4. Olive Oil - Full of monounsaturated fat that lowers bad LDL cholesterol and reduces your risk of developing heart disease.

5. Nuts - Almonds, walnuts, and macadamia nuts are rich in omega-3 fatty acids and mono- and polyunsaturated fats.

6. Berries - A true super food, berries are full of anti-inflammatories, which reduce your risk of heart disease and cancer. They also contain fiber, vitamins, and phytochemicals and flavonoids that may help to prevent heart disease and cancer.

7. Legumes - Lentils, beans, and chick peas are packed with omega-3 fatty acids, calcium, and soluble fiber.

8. Spinach - Contains lutein (great for eye health, too), folate, potassium, and fiber.

9. Flaxseed - Full of fiber and omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.

10. Soy - May lower cholesterol, and is a great source of lean protein in a heart-healthy diet.

So join me while I search for recipes that are healthy for your heart and taste delicious, too.

Oatmeal goodness

We all love oatmeal for breakfast, especially Kath of the Kath Eats Real Food blog. She was one of the 15 bloggers that went to the Quaker Oats Living Proof blogger event. Kath is an oatmeal traditionalist who likes to eat her oatmeal in a bowl with a scoop of peanut butter in a spoon, like in her recipe for Pumpkin Oats.

But there are other ways to enjoy oatmeal. michelle at Je Mange La Ville likes them in her
Heart Healthy Oatmeal Green Tea Pancakes. Compounds in green tea have been found to inhibit the growth of cancer cells. There is also research indicating that drinking green tea lowers total cholesterol levels, as well as improving the ratio of good to bad cholesterol.

Fish and heart health

The American Heart Association recommends eating fatty fish like salmon at least two times a week. You can grill it, eat it in sushi, or add it to a salad. Luisa Weiss at The Wednesday Chef likes to put it in soup. She uses Nigella Lawson’s Salmon with Ginger and Lemon Grass Broth recipe. Lemon grass is good for you, too. According to the Food and Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST), every 100 grams of boiled lemon grass (also called tanglad) contains 24.205 micrograms of beta-carotene, an antioxidant that many believe can prevent cancer.

Heart healthy dips and soup

According to Snopes.com, the Super Bowl is not the time of year when the most avocados are sold. (That honor goes to Cinco de Mayo.) Still 8 million pounds of avocados is a whole lot of guacamole.

Instead of a traditional avocado dip, try Amy at Eggs on Sunday’s Avocado, Black Bean, and Vegetable Dip. Her recipe also uses black beans, a legume, which is number seven on our Top Ten Heart Healthy food list. Amy also features a Lentil Soup with Winter Greens, Cumin & Cilantro recipe on her blog. Besides lentils, which are as good for your wallet as they are your heart, her soup features healthy winter greens like kale, chard, collards, and spinach.

Speaking of which, Jason Perlow of Off the Broiler has a recipe for Heart Healthy Spinach Dip with Fresh Veggie Chips. It’s wonderful to see a heart healthy version of this popular party dish. Not only does it have heart healthy spinach, but it has probiotics from the yogurt.

Nuts and soy

I like finding recipes that combine heart healthy ingredients so you get “more bang for your buck.” Susan at Fat Free Vegan Kitchen’s Pistachio Encrusted Tofu is a perfect example of this. Susan cooks with little to no fats, but that doesn’t mean her dishes are tasteless. In this recipe, she uses soy sauce, maple syrup, tofu mayo, and spicy mustard along with the pistachios to coat the tofu. She also recommends using her Ridiculously Easy Sweet and Sour Sauce, with peach preserves, chili sauce and soy sauce, as a dip. Even better, each serving is very low in calories and very high in fiber.

Seeds and berries

Flaxseed is a great addition to your diet. I use ground (not whole) flaxseed in my morning oatmeal. You can add it to baked goods like muffins or pancakes, yogurt shakes and fruit smoothies, and even meatloaf!

Nicole Weston of Baking Bites, likes to use it in her Oat Bran and Flaxseed Bread. It’s sweetened with honey or agave syrup, which many people prefer to use over refined white sugar. Even so, you may want to spread on some heart healthy berry preserves.

Jen Carlile of Modern Beet makes Wild Elderberry Preserves with Honey and Almond. Elderberries are high in phytochemicals and flavonoids. Jen harvested elderberries she found growing along side of the road by where she lives in Northern California. Living off the land is healthier than you think!

Valereee of Cincinnati Locavore likes making Strawberry Preserves with no pectin. She says the secret is finding fresh strawberries with green tips, “There’s pectin in unripe strawberries, and those with a little green left on them have plenty of pectin.”

If the idea of canning sounds like too much work, you can try Alysa from The Savory Notebook’s Blueberry Freezer Jam. She gives some important cooking tips in her post No Fuss Blueberry Jam, too.

Heart healthy inspiration

As Dave Grotto, the author of “101 Foods That Could Save Your Life” told me when I met him at the Quaker Oats Blogger Event last year, it’s all about identifying and eating the foods that will make your heart healthier. I hope some of these links and recipes will inspire you to eat better this year.

Need more Heart Healthy recipes? You can find over 127,800 of them on the FoodieView Recipe Search Engine.

Anne-Marie teaches parents how to combine children’s books and cooking to promote family togetherness at her blog, My Readable Feast.

And you can also find her at This Mama Cooks! On a Diet sharing healthy recipes and fitness and weight loss tips.

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 1st, 2009 at 7:02 pm and is filed under Recipe Roundup. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.