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Get the buy blood oranges and creative tools you need with an All-in-One plan and your first month free. You have successfully subscribed to our newsletter. Many diets are very specific about what you can’t eat. In fact, research shows that adding certain foods to your diet is just as important as cutting back on others.
Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center. Advertising on our site helps support our mission. We do not endorse non-Cleveland Clinic products or services. That especially holds true for a heart-healthy diet. The connection between nutrition and your heart Good nutrition and a healthy heart go hand in hand. Even more importantly, making good diet choices can also address risk factors for heart disease and heart-related conditions.
That means eating healthier foods can reduce or even eliminate the chance you’ll develop certain health issues down the line. It can be difficult to eliminate some of these things from your diet completely, so don’t feel guilty about occasionally having a small serving of an unhealthy indulgence. The trick is to keep the portion small. In contrast, you shouldn’t overdo it on some recommended healthy foods either. For example, registered dietitian Julia Zumpano, RD, notes you should limit fish that’s high in mercury, like albacore tuna, swordfish and king mackerel, to 6 ounces a week.
Zumpano offers some tips on how to put together a balanced, heart-friendly diet. Increase your fruits and vegetables intake Your parents were right: Eat your fruits and veggies! These provide a variety of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and dietary fiber — all things known to help prevent disease. Zumpano says to aim for a combined seven to nine servings of fruits and vegetables each day: roughly 4 or greater for vegetables and two to four for fruit.
If you don’t reach recommended serving sizes in a given day, don’t worry. It’s more about what your overall diet looks like in a week, so just load up on veggies or fruits in the following days. 1 medium-sized piece of fresh fruit. 2 cups raw leafy salad greens. Have a vegetable-based soup or garden salad with light dressing with your usual sandwich at lunch. Instead of a cookie, enjoy frozen banana slices topped with natural peanut butter and semi-sweet chocolate chips or frozen grapes dipped in 1 teaspoon of chocolate syrup.
Keep fresh fruit on your desk or workspace. Make a fruit and veggie smoothie with produce that needs to be eaten quickly. Eat a variety of fruits and vegetables Where fruits and veggies are concerned, variety is the spice of a healthy life. Choosing food in a rainbow of colors ensures you’ll ingest a diverse array of nutrients. Decrease saturated fats and trans fats We all need fat in our diet, but not all fat is created equally. Trans fats and saturated fats are so-called bad fats. Red meat is high in saturated fat, as are certain kinds of cheese.
A better choice is consuming good fats, or monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. You’ll find these in nuts, seeds, avocados, olives, flaxseed, soy and fatty fish. Prepare your food with cooking oils such as olive oil or avocado oil, both of which contain healthier fats. Eat two to three meatless meals weekly — try split pea soup, garbanzo bean salad, bean-based meatless burgers or tofu stir-fry. Eat two skinless poultry meals each week.
