Adopt a heart healthy diet

Focus on your heart health and adopt a heart healthy diet and eating habits to lead a healthy lifestyle

When eating for your heart health, it's important to focus on foods you like and will eat regularly. These heart-healthy foods should be part of your total diet and not in addition to what you're already eating. Also do not eat them in huge amounts that it might add on to your calories.

The best foods for healthy heart:

Nuts
Having a few dry salted roasted peanuts daily may help reduce your risk of heart disease. Peanuts are nutritious and have monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats and dietary fiber to help support a healthy heart.

Fruits and vegetables
Make sure there is produce on your plate during every meal: fruits and vegetables contain potassium, vitamin C (an antioxidant) and phytonutrients, which may act as anti-inflammatory agents.

Fiber-rich foods
Eat foods containing soluble fiber, such as citrus fruits, oats, barley, apples, pears, cabbage-family vegetables, carrots, sweet potatoes, and dried beans and peas. Oats and barley contain beta-glucan, which can lower cholesterol.

Omega-3 foods
Serve up foods rich in omega-3s, such as salmon, fresh tuna, albacore tuna, sardines, herring, walnuts and flaxseed.

Olive oil
Use moderate amount of extra-virgin olive oil (about 1 tablespoon of olive oil per day). Olive oil contains monounsaturated fats, vitamin E, polyphenols and oleocanthol, a substance that has antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties.

Tea
Aim for 2 to 3 cups of green, black or white tea per day.

Dark chocolate
Enjoy dark chocolate, but do not over eat.
Whole grains
Chew down on whole grains, like oats, whole wheat, brown rice and cornmeal.
Heart healthy dos and don'ts
Now that you know the healthiest foods for your heart, adopt the following heart-healthy eating habits.

-Take more time to focus on food and you'll be more likely to eat the right amount for you. Eat slowly, savouring every bite of your food. Eating too quickly may result in overeating, and can even make your mealtime stressful.
-Don't multi-task: Your mealtimes should be relaxing and enjoyable, so don't answer emails or work calls.
-Don't eat large meals: Try to evenly divide food over the course of the day. Large meals tend to be taxing on your body. As a bonus, smaller meals will keep your energy level up and can help you maintain a healthy weight or lose weight.-Eat lighter in the evening: Try to have smaller meals in the evening, or space food out over the course of the evening. Studies have shown that the incidence of heart attack and stroke is highest during the late evening and early morning, and may correlate to having a large evening meal.