Healthy food for cholesterol includes three critical steps:
1. Low saturated fat
This is the most important dietary change to reduce cholesterol. Your liver converts saturated fat into cholesterol.
The more saturated fat you eat, the higher your cholesterol levels may go.
Filter out foods with high saturated fat, such as chicken, mutton, fish, eggs, milk, ghee, butter, coconut oil, and palm oil.
Maximise foods with low saturated fat, such as fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts and seeds.
2. High fiber
Fiber helps trap bile, cholesterol and fat, and poop it out everyday.
Without fiber, the fat you eat gets fully absorbed along with bile.
Fiber can help prevent this and improve fat excretion through stools.
Maximise your fiber intake from whole food plant based foods. We recommend getting 70-75g of fiber everyday, including soluble and insoluble fiber.
3. Reduce cholesterol intake
While it has less of an effect on blood cholesterol than saturated fat, eating cholesterol can boost blood cholesterol too.
Shifting from an animal food based diet to a plant based diet can help you eliminate cholesterol from your diet.
Your lab test may say that total cholesterol less than 200 mg/dL is 'desirable'.
But the problem is, people who have a cholesterol of 180-200 still have a [high risk of heart attacks and stroke!](https://nutritionfacts.org/video/how-low-should-you-go-for-ideal-cholesterol-levels/)
Ideally, you should aim for a total cholesterol of 150 or less, and [LDL cholesterol of 50-70 or less](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15172426/)
You can best achieve this through a whole food plant based lifestyle. Get started with learning about this at NutritonScience.in or sign up for daily meal deliveries at SampoornaAhara.com for a more convenient option.
Be Blessed!
Dr. Achyuthan Eswar