8 Foods to Lower LDL Cholesterol, Boost HDL Cholesterol, and Fight Inflammation
Welcome Stumblers and all newcomers! If you want to lose weight, gain muscle, increase energy levels, reduce stress or just generally look and feel healthier you've come to the right place.
Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter for tips, advice and special insider-only information.
Learn more about the Primal Lifestyle by visiting the Primal Blueprint 101 page. Thanks for visiting!
Cholesterol! It’s the evil substance plugging arteries everywhere, and statins are the drug industry’s Drano. Even orange juice is jumping on the bandwagon! What did Americans do before the advent of plant oils, margarine, cholesterol-free soy protein, fat-free dairy, and statins? Back when they lived on beef and lard and salt pork and butter and cream and there was no 1% milk to be found, how did they manage their cholesterol? Whatever did they do?
Oddly enough, one thing they didn’t do was die of heart disease.
Cholesterol, and saturated fat, are not necessarily unhealthy. People who eliminate trans fat and carbohydrates from grains (soda, pasta, bread, desserts) see major drops in bad cholesterol and triglycerides despite continuing to eat cholesterol-rich foods like red meat, eggs, cream, and butter. In fact, there’s good reason to question the reigning “lipid hypothesis“, which posits that dietary cholesterol clogs the arteries and leads to heart disease. LDL (bad) cholesterol builds up in the arteries not from how many omelets you eat, but in response to inflammation. This is triggered by a diet high in trans fat and processed carbohydrates, not saturated fat.
If you want to lower your cholesterol, what you’re really talking about is improving your health and reducing your risk of heart disease, right? Right. So be sure that along with lowering bad (LDL) cholesterol you boost good (HDL) cholesterol and control inflammation.
These foods will help you do just that!
1. The grain issue.
Most cholesterol-lowering guides will recommend that you switch refined carbohydrates to whole-grain carbohydrates (such as whole-wheat pasta and whole-grain bread). If you’ve been living on a diet of starchy carbohydrates, this switch will help lower your cholesterol. But to really lower your cholesterol – and reduce inflammation, which is just as significant to heart health and more significant for overall health – eliminate grains entirely. Yes – you read that correctly. Here’s why you need to banish even complex grain carbohydrates from your diet.
2. Eat fruit instead of guzzling juice.
If you are going to eat something sweet, first make sure it’s fruit instead of desserts and candies. But choose fruit, not fruit juice. The benefit of fruit comes from the fiber, so if you drink juice, you’re losing that wonderful benefit and essentially drinking sugar water.
3. Eat at least 5 servings of vegetables daily, and work up to 9.
Good ones are colorful bell peppers, chili peppers, and broccoli.
4. Raise your good cholesterol!
We tend to focus on the negative, but it’s equally important to raise your good cholesterol. Do this with a daily serving of essential fatty acids from avocados, nuts, olive oil, nut oils, and nut butters.
5. Take advantage of every opportunity for Omega-3’s.
Switch from regular eggs to DHA-enhanced eggs. They’re all over the place and relatively inexpensive.
6. Fish: the multi-tasker.
Eat wild, fatty, cold-water fish and consider a fish oil supplement. (Best bets: wild, Alaskan salmon, wild mackerel, Nordic sardines.) Fish is the richest source of Omega-3 fatty acids, so aim for two or three portions a week. Make sure you choose wild, cold-water fish to reduce exposure to chemicals like mercury.
7. Garlic.
Garlic is wonderful for your cardiovascular system and as part of the allium family of plants it’s a natural anti-inflammatory. Other great foods that reduce inflammation: ginger, curry, and chili peppers.
8. Onions ‘n things.
Whether it’s scallions, leeks, chives, white onions, red onions, or shallots, these flavorful bulbs are terrific for quelling inflammation and healing your arteries. Onions also contain high levels of quercetin, an important flavonoid that reduces cholesterol. Try to eat some every day.
In general, focus on eating only fresh, whole, unprocessed foods: meats, fish, eggs, vegetables, legumes, fruits, and nuts.
Further reading:
44 Incredible Recipes for Vegans and Low-Carbers Alike!
Sources: iVillage, Weston A. Price
Subscribe to Mark’s Daily Apple feeds
Posted By: Worker Bee
(
I did not know that orange juice lost it’s fiber quality. I love oj…so disappointed…
I guess pulpy OJ retains some fiber, but there are other problems with juice: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/juicing/
Perfect, perfect advice. I always think that it just comes down to eating smart: organic and local fruits and vegetables, whole grains … you know the drill.
Cheers!
Beating up on grains again, you paleo you. Did you know that protein also raises insulin levels? Milk in particular causes insulin levels to skyrocket and the effect lingers into the next meal.
I like your blog, but you haven’t convinced me to give up my occasional 1/2 cup of oatmeal or 1/4 cup of brown rice.
Sonagi,
I like the way you think. I’m not trying to convince you to give up your occasional minute portion of grain. My POV is that we shouldn’t build a lifestyle or a national food pyramid based on grain, whether whole or processed. Hey, I still drink grain in the form of beer.
As for some forms of protein raising insulin levels, we’ll be doing a take on that in the future. There is a lot to investigate in the realm of “insulin index” versus “glycemic index”.
While I don’t claim to have all the answers, I do claim to have strong opinions. If you can convince me to change my opinion, more power to you. Keep those comments coming, Sonagi.
I eat more veggies than anything, much fruit, lots of nuts, omega 3 eggs, fish, and i cook with onions. I do eat oatmeal and brown rice sometimes. It’s working for me, i feel great!
Along with my exercises. Donna
“My POV is that we shouldn’t build a lifestyle or a national food pyramid based on grain, whether whole or processed. “
Strongly agree. That’s why I reject the traditional Asian and Mediterranean pyramids in favor of my own design that fills the bottom row with non-starch vegetables. I can’t call it a paleo pyramid because it includes legumes and whole grains.
While googling research on correlations between diet and diabetes, I came across this interesting study, which found that a Western diet of processed foods highly correlated with the onset of diabetes (no surprise there) and that consumption of red meat and processed meats correlated more highly than the consumption of refined grains. Whole grains and legumes were negatively correlated with the onset of diabetes.
http://www.annals.org/cgi/reprint/136/3/201.pdf
“Hey, I still drink grain in the form of beer.”
Heh, heh. We all have our vices, don’t we? One reason why I like your blog a little better than Art’s is that you’re not dogmatic.
“There is a lot to investigate in the realm of “insulin index” versus “glycemic index”.
I agree and hope researchers will devote more efforts to exploring the insulinotrophic effects of foods.
Proteins do a great job at raising insulin levels.
But even fats do. This seems odds since fats have a neutral effect on insulin. So what actually raises insulin? Calorie! Whenever we eat and whatever we eat our insulin levels go up. These levels are known as post-prandial insulin levels and they’re always high.
The point is that in healthy people high post-prandial insulin levels go down quickly after digestion while on unhealthy people with sugar issues they remain chronically high.
So that’s the problem of the whole low-carb obsession with insulin. It’s impossible to lower the insulin peak caused by eating even if you eat nothing but butter. But as far as chronically high insulin levels are concerned no ISOCALORIC study has ever showed low-carb diets lowering insulin levels more than unrefined high-carb diets.
In fact no ISOCALORIC study has ever showed a difference in feeding people which high insulin levels compared to feeding people with low insulin levels.
So the bottom line is that insulin has nothing to do with fat gain and the reason is simple: both fat and protein has independent fat-storate mechanisms which are activated when excessive calories are consumed (even if it’s just butter)
Post prandial insulin has nothing to do with inflamation, hyperinsulinemia and diabetes.
While whole grains are known to raise post prandial insulin (just like beef and cod) they’re also known to be very effective in lowering chronically high insulin levels, increasing insulin sensitivity and glucose tolerance; expecially oats, quinoa, buckwheat, spelt and sorghum.
If you want to life healthy, make sure your cholesterol LDL is low in blood. For that you must control your mouth and lifestyle
take less of bad fat, raise your consumption fruits and vegetable, legumes everyday. if not you run heart disease and heart attack risk.
Dieting now for 2 months to lower LDL. Dieting going way have eliminated saturated fats, red meat, dairy (except for skim milk), drink lot of water and eats lot os fruit and vegetable, as well as 100%whole wheat bread. Concern is what about salt. The info I have says to limit your intake of salto 5 mgs/day. Any thoughts?
What about salt intake w/lowering ldl cholesterol diet. How much salt is adviseable?
I think that natural grains have got to be good for you because our ancestors ate them regularly. The problem is about a hundred years ago manufacturers stopped stone grinding them and got rid of the husks. They eventually created the ‘white’ flour we see today and touted it as better flour. This flour was (worthless) low in nutrition because the husks contain a lot of helpful nutrition that you don’t want to just throw away. So they ‘enriched’ the flour – still it doesn’t touch the original sone-ground flours.
What’s the truth on legumes, Mark?
Above you say: “In general, focus on eating only fresh, whole, unprocessed foods: meats, fish, eggs, vegetables, legumes, fruits, and nuts.” yet I got from your book that legumes are best avoided. P 158 and p 270 (not p 269 as listed in the index)
Can you clear the confusion please Mark?
thank you so much but it is really not easy living out of grains you knowwww