11 High Cholesterol Foods that You Must Avoid

11 High Cholesterol Foods that You Must Avoid by yCe 2011/10/27 03:07
Cholesterol is an essential part of your diet. After all, the body needs a daily allowance of cholesterol for proper functioning. Unfortunately, if you fail to regulate your cholesterol intake, this can make you susceptible to heart disease, stroke, and cardiovascular diseases. Thus, you need to keep your cholesterol intake within the recommended daily allowance.

Avoiding foods that are high in cholesterol is not easy; some of these foods might be part of our daily diet. If we cannot totally avoid them, we might as well consume these foods in moderation. Here are some of them.

High Cholesterol Foods:

1. Egg yolk

Eggs are not really considered as high cholesterol foods, but the egg yolk portion of it contains more cholesterol than your body needs.

2. Fried foods

Most types of fried foods are high cholesterol foods, especially deep fried foods such as French fries, onion rings, fried shrimp, and so on. It would be hard to remember all the high cholesterol fried foods, though, so just to be on the safe side, you should consider saying goodbye to fried foods completely.

3. Fatty meat

Although you do not have to avoid meat completely, you do have to limit your consumption of the highly fatty portions of beef and pork. These portions include the tenderloin, the top loin, the brisket, the T-bone, the flank, and the rib-eye. Aside from that, you should also completely avoid organ meats such as liver and intestines as these will increase your risks of getting a heart attack.

4. Processed foods

Processed foods such as hot dogs, ham, bologna, and luncheon meats should be avoided because these are high in sodium and contains plenty of saturated fats.

5. Cooking oils and coconut/palm oil

All sorts of regular cooking oils have high cholesterol levels. Even if you choose the low cholesterol portions of meat, if you deep fry them in high cholesterol oil, they will still bring a lot of unwanted cholesterol into your body. Instead of using regular cooking oil, look for other alternatives such as olive oil or canola oil. Just make sure its not coconut and palm oil, which are also very high in cholesterol.

6. Milk and other dairy products

Whole-fat dairy products including milk and butter should be avoided, while dairy products with 2% fat such as yogurt and cheese should be consumed in moderation. Its a good thing that most dairy products now come in low fat versions.

7. Pastries, cakes, and other sweet treats

Most sweet treats are high in cholesterol, and also contain a lot of butter, oil, and shortening. When put together, these really do not benefit the body. If you happen to have a sweet tooth, then you need to make a sacrifice in order to enjoy a healthier life.

8. Duck or goose skin

Duck or goose, especially their skin, should be completely avoided since they have excessively high levels of cholesterol.

9. Ice cream

Ice cream may be sweet and refreshing, but they are not very friendly to your body, especially to your heart.

10. Toppings and mayonnaise dressings

Some people find healthy diets to be a bit bland, so they rely on toppings and dressings to spice things up a bit. Unfortunately, most toppings and dressings on the market are high in cholesterol, so putting them on low cholesterol foods is defeating the latters purpose. Thus, instead of using creams, butter, and gravy, look for low-fat or fat-free mayonnaise, olive oil, and salsa.

11. Any food containing trans fats

Trans fats are known as the much dreaded bad cholesterol or LDL. By consuming more of these, you lower the ratio of your HDL or good cholesterol levels. This is a tricky category, as it can contain almost any type of food. In fact, a lot of seemingly innocent and healthy energy bars even contain lots of trans fats...