Archive: Around Town

	A few years ago, my heart stopped functioning properly. A cardiac artery was blocked, and I felt some strange and scary symptoms. The blockage was relieved with a stent, and the hospital that installed it included a detailed lecture to all such patients. They don’t want to see us again. Heeding that information has kept me healthy, and I want to share what I’ve learned with everyone who’s had a heart attack or has the potential.

If you have plaque in your arteries, and most of us do, then you have it everywhere, not just near your heart, and you need to keep it from building. Great news: You can do this, and even reverse the buildup. Why wait until you need stent or bypass surgery?

First, the Basic Commandment: Thou Shalt Not Eat Saturated Fats. That’s it. Up to a point, fat can be your friend, as long as it’s not saturated. Yes, cholesterol is also an enemy, but watching saturated fats is an easy approach that works. Learn to read labels! If a so-called serving has more than two grams of saturated fat, put it back. Pretty simple, right? More than two grams of saturated fat, put it back.

For instance, this peanut butter label shows 3 grams of saturated fat per serving. Forget it.

Thanks to coronary artery disease, you may be facing a dietary change that amounts to a whole new approach to meals, a whole new way of living. For instance, a serving a butter, one tablespoonful, about enough for a slice of bread, has seven grams of saturated fat, way past the two gram limit. So no more butter on or in anything. That means no more buttered popcorn, no more butter on that corn-on-the-cob, no more buttercream icing, no more butter in the frying pan, no more cookies — not the good ones, anyway.

And no more cream. If you use cream in your coffee, switch to non-dairy, but check that label. It may have as much saturated fat as cream. Or learn to drink coffee like the pros, and take it black.

Instead of cream over strawberries or whatever, enjoy them with a flavored nonfat yogurt, or nonfat frozen yogurt. And sprinkle on some ground flax, which I’ll tell you more about in a future installment.

What else is through the roof with saturated fat? Bacon! Hamburgers. Hot dogs. Bratwurst. Sausage. Steak. Pork. Lamb. The only common meats we should consider are chicken breast and turkey breast. Without the skin. Ground turkey? Nope. They grind in dark meat and the skin. Just check the saturated fat level on the label. Ground turkey breast is sometimes OK. Even ground bison and Laura’s Lean ground beef is too fatty for us. Learn to like poultry sausage. It’s not the same, but it works. And Bubba turkey burgers, the only heart healthy frozen burgers, sold only at Lansing Market, are actually good.
Some other meats are excellent, if you can find them. Venison is practically zero fat, as is goat. I highly recommend rabbit: high protein, high potassium, and no fat. But good luck finding it.

Every other week: Lots more on food, drugs, medical ID, how and why to keep moving, and recipes!

---

v9i10