Stay Away From Food High In Cholesterol
By: Henry Fong | Posted: 15th September 2009
If the food tastes great, more often than not it is food high in cholesterol. They are not wrong when they say if it tastes good it can't be good for you. This does not mean that you have to give up all that you like to eat, the key is moderation.
Foods high in cholesterol are basically foods which have a high percentage of saturated fats. Increased consumption of saturated fats provokes the liver to increase the production of LDL, bad cholesterol. It is not that fatty foods are the culprit. The culprits are foods with triglycerides and saturated fats. Fatty foods high in unsaturated fats on the other hand are good for your heart and trigger the production of HDL the good cholesterol.
The culprits, saturated fats and cholesterol are naturally a part of most animal products. This includes egg yolk, high fat dairy products, meat, fish and poultry. Does this mean that you have to convert to being a vegetarian? It is not so as the key as I said is moderation. Even the healthy vegetarian food can become high cholesterol food depending on the way it is cooked. For example fried fries, fritters and other such foods which have been fried in fat are sources of high cholesterol.
Instead of giving up what you like, cook it in a healthier way. These foods high in cholesterol can be less harmful if cooked differently. More than the food it is how you cook that makes the difference.
There are plenty of foods which have very low or no cholesterol content. These foods if not cooked properly or fried or cooked with too much fat, can become disastrous food high in cholesterol. Coconut oil is a classic example of this. It has no cholesterol in it naturally but has saturated fat to hilt, thus any food cooked in it becomes high in cholesterol. The saturated fat makes the liver produce excessive LDL.
Processed and packaged foods are also food high in cholesterol. They contain too much of sugar, salt and saturated fats. This means you need to target the snacks, munchies sponge cakes, muffins, ice-creams, muffins, doughnuts and the like. All these foods are waiting to cause havoc with your cholesterol levels. No doubt we love eating them, but we need to check ourselves if we don't want to land with cardiovascular health problems.
An effort has to be made to slowly reduce intake of foods high in cholesterol and replace them with healthy alternatives to increase the HDL levels.
Visit the Cholesterol Scoop for more information on Low Cholesterol and Cancer.About the Author
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Tags: culprit, culprits, hilt, dairy products, good cholesterol, bad cholesterol, high cholesterol, animal products, fatty foods, egg yolk, vegetarian food, saturated fats, unsaturated fats, coconut oil, triglycerides, sugar salt