Heart Healthy Diets: The Vegetarian Way

Heart Healthy Diets

Heart healthy diets are low in saturated fat, low in cholesterol, low to moderate in fat, and high in fiber. A vegetarian diet can easily meet these guidelines. Vegetarians do not eat meat, fish, or poultry.

Heart-Healthy Cooking

* Here are guidlelines for heart-healthy cooking:

• Sauté in water instead of oil or use small amounts of olive or canola oil.

• Use low-fat cooking methods like:
  • broiling
  • steaming
  • roasting
  • baking
  • poaching
  • boiling
  • stir-frying with little or no oil.

• When baking, cut the oil, butter, or margarine in half and replace it with water, juice, applesauce, or puréed prunes.

• Replace whole eggs with bananas, tofu, applesauce, or egg replacers (such as Ener-G Egg Replacer).

Heart-Healthy Shopping

* Here are guidelines for heart-healthy shopping:

• Buy more fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, and, if desired, fat-free milk products.
• Buy snacks like popcorn (air pop and serve plain or with a drizzle of olive oil or melted margarine), fresh fruits and vegetables, rice cakes, and pretzels instead of chips, crackers, and cookies that are high in hydrogenated fats.
• Buy whole grain breads and cereals that are high fiber. Limit low fiber refined breads and cereals and high fat products like most croissants, muffins, and granola cereal.
• Buy fat-free or low-fat milk instead of reduced fat (2%) or whole milk, if you use milk.
• Buy plain fresh or frozen vegetables instead of vegetables in cheese, cream, or butter sauces.
• Use nutrition labels to help choose foods lower in saturated fat, cholesterol, and fat.

Heart Healthy Eating Out

* Here are guidelines for heart-healthy eating out:

• Choose foods like pizza without cheese, stir-fried dinners (request that they be made with little oil), steamed vegetables, pasta and tomato sauce, plain baked potatoes, vegetable-based soups, low-fat cottage cheese, and fruit or sorbet for dessert. At salad bars, choose lots of fresh vegetables and fruits; avoid mayonnaise-based salads such as most potato salads and coleslaw, salad dressings unless low-fat, cheese, and regular creamed cottage cheese.
• Ask that dressings and sauces be served on the side so you can control the amount you eat.
• Talk to the chef and explain that you want foods prepared with little fat.

Saturated vs. Unsaturated Fats

Saturated fats and trans fatty acids are the kinds of fats most likely to cause heart disease. Saturated fats are found mainly in animal products (eggs, butter, cheese, whole milk, and whole milk products), and in coconut, palm, and palm kernel oil. Trans fatty acids appear in foods containing hydrogenated fats like margarine and crackers. To reduce the risk of heart disease, replace saturated fats with unsaturated fats like canola oil, olive oil, flax seed oil, nuts, avocado, soy products, and nut butters. Choose margarine, cookies, crackers, and snack foods that do not contain hydro-genated fats (read the label).

Is Cholesterol Found in Foods Vegetarians Eat?

Cholesterol is found in foods from animals. Eggs and dairy products do have cholesterol. Grains, legumes, nuts, fruits, vegetables, and vegetable oils do not have cholesterol or only contain insignificant amounts. We do not need any cholesterol in our diets since our bodies can make all the cholesterol we need. High blood cholesterol levels are associated with diets high in saturated fat and cholesterol.

Fiber

Fiber is found only in plant foods. A vege-tarian diet featuring fruits, vegetables, whole grain breads and cereals, and dried beans will be high in fiber. Oats, carrots, fruits, and beans are especially high in one kind of fiber that helps to lower blood cholesterol.

Saturated fat, cholesterol, fiber — Does this sound like too much to think about? Try to make food choices that emphasize whole grains, dried beans, vegetables, and fruit. If you do this and follow a vegetarian diet, you'll find that, without much effort, your diet will be low in saturated fat and cholesterol and high in fiber.

How Much Fat Should We Eat?

Experts do not agree about the ideal level of dietary fat and, in fact, there may not be just one ideal level. A reasonable goal for most people would be to have saturated fat pro-viding no more than 8-10% of calories and a total fat intake between 15 and 30% of total calories. Fat intakes at the higher end of this range, when the fat is monounsaturated fat (nuts, seeds, olive oil, canola oil, avocado), may be a better choice than restriction of all types of dietary fat. Fat should not be limited in children less than 2 years. After 2 years, children should gradually limit dietary fat so that by around age 5, between 20 and 30 per-cent of calories come from fat. This type of diet should be used throughout childhood and adolescence.

In practical terms, what does 30% or less of calories from fat mean?

If you usually eat this many calories:	Your fat intake should be no more than:	Your saturated fat intake should be no more than:(gms)
1600	53 grams	17 grams
2000	66 grams	22 grams
2200	73 grams	24 grams

The following table shows the amount of fat in many foods vegetarians eat. To find out how much fat is in other foods you buy, you will need to read labels.

Keep a record of how much fat you eat for a week or two. Do you need to change your eating habits?

FAT IN SELECTED VEGETARIAN FOODS

Food	Saturated fat (gm)	Fat (gm)
Butter, 1 pat	2.5	4
Margarine, soft, 1 pat	0-1	4
Salad dressing, creamy, 2 Tbsp	1-2	10
Vegetable oil, 1 Tbsp	1	14
Nuts and Seeds, 1 oz	2	16
Peanut butter, 1 Tbsp	1	8
Cooked beans, 1 cup	0	1
Egg, 1 large	1.5	5
Fat-free milk, 1 cup	Trace	Trace
Soy milk, 1 cup	0	3-5
Whole milk, 1 cup	5	8
Cheese, 3 ounces	18	28
Fruit, 1 medium	0	0
Grains, cooked, 1 cup	0	1
Vegetables, 1 cup	0	0-1
Bread, 1 slice	Trace	1
Potato Chips, 1 oz	3	10
French fries, 10	2	8
Olive, 1 large	Trace	<1
Avocado, half	2	15

CHOLESTEROL IN VEGETARIAN FOODS

Food	Cholesterol (mg)
Butter, 1 pat	11
Egg, 1 large	212
Nonfat milk, 1 cup	4
Whole milk, 1 cup	33
Cheese, 3 oz	90
Soy milk, fruit, vegetables, grains dried beans, nuts	0

What About Soy?

Soy foods like tofu, tempeh, meat analogs, soy milk, and other products appear to help reduce the risk of heart disease. This may be because of plant estrogens, called isoflavones, found in soy products or may be due to the cholesterol-lowering effect of soy protein. In any case, in-cluding a serving or two of soy products daily can enhance a heart healthy vegetarian diet.

Vitamin B12 and Heart Disease

Adequacy of vitamin B12 appears to be important in reducing heart disease risk. Vegetarians with low blood vitamin B12 levels appear to have higher levels of a substance called homocysteine, associated with in-creased risk of heart disease. To insure adequate intakes of vitamin B12, vegetarians who eat little or no animal-derived products should use a reliable source of vitamin B12 like fortified soymilk, Vegetarian Support Formula nutritional yeast, fortified breakfast cereal, or a vitamin B12 supplement daily.

Anything Else?

Vitamin C, vitamin E, beta-carotene, and flavonoids also appear to be important in the prevention of heart disease. Vitamin C is found in citrus fruits and juices, cantaloupe, broccoli, and tomatoes. Vegetable oils, dark green vegetables, nuts, avocados, and whole grains provide generous amounts of vitamin E. Good sources of beta-carotene include orange and dark yellow vegetables like carrots, winter squash, and pumpkin. Flavonoids are found in fruits, vegetables, grape juice, and tea. Nuts appear to reduce risk of heart disease.