Recipes for Lowering Cholesterol and Triglycerides

plab19

Hey everyone, I am having to undergo a new diet plan that will lower my LDL levels and Triglycerides, as well as raise my HDL. If any of you have any recipes that may be related to this type of nutritional goal, please share! Thanks!

mjbnj0001

Good luck on your journey.

None of what I say here is medical-grade advice/consult professional sources. I am sharing some of my experiences in this regard. Apologies in advance for length.

Not a lot of details/contstraints/preferences in your request. I have found the bean and chickpea-forward recipes at "Spain on a Fork" (Youtube channel and associated website) pretty easy and flavorful. There are many others. For some science behind cholesterol/etc., I've been watching videos from "Zoe" on YT (they have a full, paid program to follow, but I've just been following their podcasts/etc.).

While saturated fats from animal sources do play a role - sometimes individually very big depending on your own metabolism/details - surprisingly, dietary sugar does too. Be prepared to dig under the covers a bit to get at these details.

I have my own load of med problems (aged 70yo, male), but fortunately cholesterol/etc. isn't among them. I usually run about 150ish total chol, and an OK LDL/HDL balance, triglycerides, etc. In my 20s, I went vegan for over a decade (I've been omnivorous since, but always veg-forward), while working at a manufacturer of lab reagents (chemical mfg in other words), and we on staff served as quality assurance test cases. They liked me, because I was a good low range test subject, averaging around 110-120 in those days, similar to tradiitonal Japanese levels.

Earlier this year, I decided to try myself as an experimental test case and went hard into a reduced meats/animal fats diet (I love cheese, for instance), and lowered my 150-ish level to 120. Many of the meals I prepared were derived from the "Spain on a Fork" recipes and other similar vegan-leaning/plant-dominant sources. I've then done lots of traveling this year, with varied diets (Montana - meat, cruise to Bermuda - cruise food/alcohol, etc. - richer than I usually eat, but with moderation in my consumption). I'm due for a physical in November, so I'll see how my level has fared through these few months.

In addition to lowering my red meat (chicken and fish still occupy my dinner plate), I avoid sugar, highly-processed foods, high fructose corn syrup, commercial bread (I bake my own about 80% of what we consume), and more. Note that I haven't eliminated basically anything, just lowered them appropriately. I've got a slew of pictures of meals over in the "What Do Your Meals Look Like?" thread here in the "Recipes" group if you want to see a few photos. Work backwards from most recent; there was a glitch in the MFP thread database a while back.