Category: Heart-smart eating

– posts here focus on latest cardiac news or research about what we put into our mouths

Mediterranean Diet: it’s all Greek to me

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

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by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

The heart-healthy Mediterranean diet is not actually a diet – at least, not in the Celebrity-Endorsed, Bestseller-List, Miracle-Weight-Loss, Before-and-After-Photos, Dr. Oz-Featured, Fad Diet sense of the word ‘diet’.

In fact, according to The Journal of Nutrition, even the term ‘Mediterranean diet‘ (implying that all Mediterranean people eat the same) may be misleading.  The countries bordering the Mediterranean basin have different diets, traditions and cultures. The Mediterranean diet could more accurately be called the ‘Greek diet’, or – even more accurate – the Greek diet before 1960. Continue reading “Mediterranean Diet: it’s all Greek to me” →

Women & heart disease: is obesity contagious?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 3 Comments

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by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

Having a tough time losing weight as part of your heart-healthy lifestyle? Take a look at your friends.

Close friends can influence your weight even more than genes or your family members, say researchers reporting in The New England Journal of Medicine. The study, co-authored by longtime collaborators Dr. Nicholas Christakis and Dr. James Fowler suggests that obesity isn’t just spreading – it may be as contagious between close friends as the common cold.

click to continue reading

If the fat won’t kill you, the salt will…

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

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Dining out used to be such a big deal.  When I was a little girl growing up in St. Catharines, a rare family outing to our neighbourhood Chinese noodle house was as exciting as life could possibly get.

Today, Canadians spend over 30% of our food budget at restaurants (compared to 42% for our American friends!)   The average household goes out for a meal, snack or beverage an average of 11 times every two weeks. Of all the money spent on food in Canada, 40% is spent in some of our 62,000+ food service outlets. But with the growing popularity of drive-thru, take-out and delivery services, 60% of restaurant-prepared items are now consumed elsewhere. And on any given day, 30% of kids living in North America visit a fast food restaurant.

That’s a whole lot of fast food, and a whole lot of salt.   Continue reading “If the fat won’t kill you, the salt will…” →

20 things women don’t know about FAT

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 1 Comment

food transfat label

Of all the types of fat we consume — saturated, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated and trans fat — the two that increase our risk of coronary artery disease are:

  • saturated fat (found in beef, butter, cheese, milk, coconut or palm oils) 
  • trans fat (deep-fried fast foods, most bakery pastries, packaged snack foods, margarines and crackers)

In fact, according to Mayo Clinic, trans fat may be worse than saturated fat because, unlike saturated fat, it both raises your low-density lipoprotein (LDL or “bad” cholesterol), and lowers your high-density lipoprotein (HDL or “good” cholesterol).  Here’s more about fat:   click to continue reading