Make healthy lifestyle choices.
Many risk factors for heart disease and stroke are in your power to control. Here are some heart-healthy tips on diet, exercise, stress and more from the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
Eat well: Learn how heart-healthy choices can help lower your risk of heart disease and stroke, whether eating at home or dining out.
Get moving: Learn the benefits of healthy activity, and get tips on adding more exercise into your daily routine.
Maintain a healthy weight: Learn the basic principles of a healthy weight and waistline — and why it matters.
Stop smoking: Smoking and exposure to second-hand smoke increase your risk of developing heart disease and stroke.
Manage your stress: Learn to identify the things that are causing you stress so you can deal with them effectively.
Salt: There’s a place for salt in a healthy eating plan, but most of us consume two or even three times the recommended amount, often without even realizing it. We do, however, need small amounts of salt for healthy functioning, such as maintaining a proper fluid balance in the body.
The blood pressure connection: About one-third of people are sensitive to the sodium component of salt. This means that eating foods with too much salt can increase the amount of blood in the arteries, raising blood pressure and increasing the risk of heart disease and stroke.
If you can lower your intake little by little each day, you can reduce blood pressure. Because our diets are generally so high in salt, everybody – even those with normal blood pressure – can benefit from reducing salt intake.
Foods with high salt content
About 80 per cent of the salt we consume comes from processed foods, including:
fast foods:
• prepared meals
• processed meats (like hot dogs and lunch meats)
• canned soups
• bottled dressings
• packaged sauces
• condiments (like ketchup and pickles)
• salty snacks (like potato chips and crackers)
Steps you can take to lower salt intake
Make as many meals at home so that you can control the amount of salt you add to your food.
When you’re grocery shopping, check the Nutrition Facts table on food products for sodium or salt.
Choose products that have a lower percentage daily value for sodium. Look for food products that are lower in sodium per serving. For example:
• A small serving of crackers (20 g) contains 10% of your daily recommended value
• Soups (125 mL condensed, 250 mL serving) contain 20% to 27% of your daily recommended value
• An entrée (per serving = 720 mg) contains 30% of your daily recommended value
If you have been diagnosed with high blood pressure, please speak to your doctor about the amount of sodium you should be consuming on a daily basis.
To help reduce added, unnecessary salt:
• Cut down on prepared and processed foods.
• Look for products with claims such as low sodium, sodium reduced or no salt added.
• Eat more fresh or frozen vegetables and fruit.
• Reduce the amount of salt you add while cooking, baking or at the table.
• Experiment with other seasonings, such as garlic, lemon juice and fresh or dried herbs.
• When eating out, ask for nutrient information for the menu items and select meals lower in sodium.
What is sugar?
Sugar is found in many foods, both naturally or added. Sugar provides energy (calories) but has no nutritional value on its own. Sugars are often added to processed foods to improve their flavour, colour, texture and shelf-life.
Sugar comes in many forms: white sugar, brown sugar, molasses, honey, maple syrup and corn sweeteners. It may be listed on the ingredient listing on food labels as: glucose, fructose, dextrose, maltose or sucrose.
If any of these sugars are listed as the first or second ingredient on a food label, the food is likely high in sugar.
Some foods that naturally contain sugar, such as vegetables, fruit and milk, are an important part of a healthy diet, because they also contain important nutrients.
How does sugar affect our health?
Consuming too much sugar is associated with heart disease, stroke, obesity, diabetes, high blood cholesterol, cancer and cavities.
How much sugar should we eat?
Heart & Stroke recommends you consume no more than 10% total calories per day from added sugars, and ideally less than 5%; that is, for an average 2,000 calorie-a-day diet, 10% is about 48 grams (or 12 teaspoons) of added sugars. One can of pop contains about 85% (or approx. 10 teaspoons) of daily added sugar.
Foods that naturally contain sugar such as vegetables, fruit and milk should be included in a healthy diet in reasonable quantities.
Foods that are high in added sugar include:
Sweetened cold and hot beverages, such as soft drinks, energy drinks, fruit flavoured drinks, sports drinks, hot chocolate and specialty coffees
Baked goods and desserts such as cakes, candies, chocolate, cookies, doughnuts, ice cream, muffins, pastries and pies
Are you drinking too much sugar?
Many popular drinks have more than half of your recommended daily sugar intake.
Tips to reduce your sugar intake
1. Don’t drink your calories.
Avoid sugary drinks. Drink water instead, when you are thirsty. Low fat, unsweetened milk is also a good way to quench thirst.
To keep things interesting, flavour your water with lemon, orange or lime slices, strawberries or fresh mint.
Avoid soft drinks and sports drinks. They are high in sugar and have no nutritional value (which is why they are called “empty calories”).
Avoid fruit juice, even when it is 100% fruit juice. Although fruit juice has some of the benefits of the fruit (vitamins, minerals), it has more sugar than the fruit and less fiber. Fruit juice should not be consumed as alternative to fruits. Canadians should eat their fruits, not drink them.
Stay away from fancy hot drinks with added sugars. Order a latte instead of a mocha coffee. Add nutmeg and cinnamon toppings for extra flavor rather than adding sugar.
2. Try whole foods. Whole foods are items that remain close to their natural state as possible with little processing. Examples are: fresh or frozen vegetables and fruit, poultry and fish, beans, lentils or tofu, brown rice, whole wheat couscous, barley, whole grain breads, plain lower fat milk, plain yogurt and cheeses.
3. Snack sensibly. Stock up on roasted nuts, lower-fat cheese and crackers, veggies and dip, and plain yogurt with fresh fruit. Reduce the amount of baked goods, sweet desserts, candies, and chocolates you eat.
4. Eat sugar-reduced cereals. Choose cereals with less than 6 grams of sugar and more than 4 grams of fibre per 1 cup (30 gram) serving.
5. Cook at home more often. Select recipes that are lower in sugar. Check out our recipe section for a wide variety of delicious recipes. Also, you can experiment with your favourite recipes by reducing the amount of added sugar to your recipes by one-quarter to one-third.
6. Read the Nutrition Facts table and the ingredient list on packaged foods. Pay special attention to the serving size total amount of sugar and read the ingredient list. The Nutrition Facts table will tell you the total amount of sugar in the product (from both naturally occurring and added sugars) and the ingredient list will let you know where the sugar is coming from.
Products with added sugars such as glucose, fructose, sucrose, honey, evaporated cane juice, fruit puree, molasses, corn syrup, dextrose, concentrated fruit juice provide no nutritional benefits – minimize or remove these items from your shopping list.
Healthy eating, healthy weight, stay active, reduce stress. Don’t let disease rob you of healthy years. You can reduce your risk of heart disease and stroke.
To find out more and how you can plan your journey to good heart health go to: https://www.heartandstroke.ca
