Worst Foods For Your Heart
Fruit Juice
It's natural! It's packed with Vitamin C!
Steak, Studies show that eating the right cuts of beef can help whittle your middle,
but pick the wrong cut and your dinner could have the opposite effect on your figure.
French Fries, Consider Fresh fries a triple threat to your heart health.
Not only are they filled with simple sources of carbs that can spike
your blood sugar, but they're also filled with fat and salt, too.
Pizza, A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips? How about this:
A night at the Hut, a lifetime in the gut. In fact, pizza is the second biggest
contributor of saturated fat to the American diet, and most slices serve up
half a day's worth of the artery clogger.
Cheese, Fun fact: Cheese is the single biggest contributor of saturated
fat to the American diet. And unlike other fats, the saturated variety
is the most likely to be stored in the stomach and wreak havoc on your
cardiovascular well-being.
Diet Soda, Did you hear? Recent studies have found an association
between sipping diet soda and a wider waist circumference. It may seem
counterintuitive since your go-to Diet Cherry Pepsi has zero calories,
but researchers think diet soda drinkers may overestimate how
many calories they're "saving," and then overeat.
Potato Chips, According to Harvard researchers, chips are one of the worst
foods for your belly. Not only are they saturated with saturated fat,
which causes your gut to expand and puts your heart in the danger zone,
they're also crusted with salt—yet another nutrient linked to
cardiovascular disease when eaten in excess.
Bouillon Cubes, When made with a homemade stock or low-sodium broth,
soup is a healthy, soothing meal. Make the stuff with a bouillon cube, however,
and you've got yourself an entirely different bowl of nutrition—one that's
overflowing with monosodium glutamate. MSG is a flavoring agent
that increases appetite and tells the body to pump out insulin,
the fat-storage hormone.
Blended Coffees, Warning: Blended coffees laced with syrup, sugar,
whipped cream, and other toppings can have as many calories and f
at grams as a milkshake. Not only can the sugar overload send blood
glucose soaring, but the caffeine can also increase your blood pressure
levels—a combination that's less than ideal if you're trying to ward
off diabetes and heart disease.
White Rice, While whole grains can reduce your risk of dying of heart disease
by nearly 20 percent but nutrient-stripped refined grains have the opposite
effect on your health. In fact, in one study of more than 350,00 people, those
who ate the most white rice were at greatest risk for type 2
diabetes—can't say we're too shocked. Bottom line: Stick with whole
grains to ward off the disease.
BECAUSE THEY MESS WITH YOUR BLOOD SUGAR…
It's a little-known fact that impaired glucose tolerance and diabetes increases
your risk for heart disease. That said, a major part of keeping your
heart healthy involves keeping your blood sugar levels in check.
Biscuits, Bad news, Southern food lovers: Packaged biscuits—the fluffy pillows
of goodness that make weekend brunch and fried chicken dinners extra
delicious—are chock full of trans fats that can hurt your heart. In fact,
each of Mary B's Buttermilk Biscuits carries three grams a pop,
which is more than a day's worth.
Margarine, Butter alternatives like margarine are often made with partially-hydrogenated oils, one of the most common sources of trans-fats. You may have heard that this type of fat is linked to heart disease, but what most people don't know is that it may also accelerate the skin's aging process by making the skin more vulnerable to ultraviolet radiation.
Did you know that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S.?
Scary, we know! Kick out these ticker-harming foods from your diet
to improve your health for years to come.
The heart: It's our most vital organ, but if you ask someone how to best care for yours,
they'll likely tell you to find a nice guy who won't break it into a million pieces.
(Thanks, mom!) Even M.D.s aren't the best source of heart advice:
The average primary care office visit lasts just 10 minutes. So,
even if your ticker is in danger, most docs will just tell you to watch
what you eat and send you on our way, no other details provided.
That's not the very prescription to put into practice, and that's why
we're here to help. Read on to discover 30 foods that sabotage your
heart health and that need to be booted out of your diet ASAP.
BECAUSE THEY CAUSE WEIGHT GAIN…
Obesity and belly fat has long been linked to cardiovascular disease.
That's because the more fat that's stored in your midsection,
the higher your blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels
Bacon & Sausage, The bacon and sausage you enjoy for breakfast,
and the deli meats you use to make your lunch may be putting your life at risk.
How? Many of these meats contain nitrates, a preservative that interferes
with the body's natural ability to process sugar, which increases
the risk for diabetes. If that wasn't bad enough, most processed meats
are also loaded with sodium, a known contributor to hypertension that
can make you bloat and set you up to develop heart disease.
Cinnamon Rolls, All pastries are sugar and carb landmines, but cinnamon
rolls may be the very worst of the lot. Consider this: A Classic Roll from
Cinnabon has 880 calories, 127 grams of carbs and 58 grams of sugar
—which is about what you'd find in 10 Chips Ahoy! Chewy cookies.
Chinese Take-Out
