Reduce Your Blood Pressure By Simply Eating The Right Foods

Estimates show that there are nearly 73 million adults in the US alone today suffering from high blood pressure and that in excess of 50 thousand people will die as a direct result of this condition during the course of this year. Unhappily, many of these deaths could be prevented and one of the quickest and simplest ways to lower your blood pressure is to alter your eating habits.

We have witnessed significant changes in our lifestyles in recent years and one especially significant change for a lot of us is seen in our diet. The times of enjoying three square home-cooked meals a day have gone and have been replaced by to a large extend by convenience foods and fast food which has resulted in various different problems including the increasing problems of obesity and high blood pressure. Fortunately, this is one state of affairs which it is very simple to reverse.

Fast and convenience foods present two major problems and these are salt and fat, both of which increase your blood pressure.

Salt is added to a huge range of food during the manufacturing and packaging process to add flavor and act as a preservative and your daily intake of salt can be very high without you adding salt to your meals at the dinner table. In particular, canned foods often contain very high levels of salt as do pizza and frozen dinners, so look closely at the labeling and determine just how much salt (sodium) products have in them before you buy them. Your total daily intake of sodium should be as low as possible but should not be greater than 2,400 milligrams which is about a teaspoonful.

Another enemy when it comes to high blood pressure is fat and, although a bit of fat in your diet is healthy, high fat food should be avoided wherever you can. As well as fats and oils themselves (like butter, lard, vegetable oil, margarine and meat dripping) a lot of our favorite foods are very high in fat. Keep an eye out for foods like cream, nuts, cakes, pies, pastries, bacon, fried chicken, cookies, cheddar, whole milk, cream cheese, french fries, sausages, salami, corned beef, regular ground beef and almost all fast foods.

Now at this point you may be thinking that this list covers almost everything you eat and that if you cut all of these out of your diet you are going to starve to death. Well, the good news is that nothing could be farther from the truth and that the choice of foods still open to you is extensive. There are two ways to solve this 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 normal full-fat milk with half-fat or semi-skimmed milk and regular ground beef with lean ground beef.

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

High blood pressure does not have to be a problem for most of us and a few simply changes to the way we eat can resolve the problem easily and quickly.


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