Foods and Recipes

Admittedly, it will be hard to cut back on animal-based foods if you typically eat a lot of them. But remember, cholesterol comes mainly from animal-based foods, so your first step will be to look for other choices.

As you're surely aware, red meat from beef contains a lot of cholesterol. There's less in poultry, but still a lot more than fish. Certain kinds of fish, particularly salmon, contain nutrients that actually reduce the amount of cholesterol in your bloodstream. If you can eat fish instead of red meat several times a week, you'll be well on your way to keeping your cholesterol under control.

The way you prepare meat and fish also makes a difference. Frying (especially deep-frying) is far less desirable than grilling, broiling, boiling, baking, or sautéing. You should also trim visible fat from red meat, and remove as much skin as possible from poultry.

The alternative options, of course, are vegetables and fruits. You probably already eat some of these - especially apples, bananas, lettuce and tomatoes. But if you spend some time roaming the produce aisle of your grocery store (or your local farmer's market), you'll undoubtedly notice veggies you've probably ignored before.

Grocery stores now stock dozens of different kinds of fruits and vegetables they probably didn't have when you were growing up and developing your eating habits.

You may be hesitant to try unfamiliar vegetables because you don't know how to cook them, and what other foods they complement. This is where the Internet and cable TV can give you plenty of ideas and new recipes.

The "food gurus" on all the cooking shows are always coming up with new and interesting ideas. And you can always type the names of unusual vegetable choices into a search engine which will return links to dozens if not hundreds of recipes containing those ingredients.

It's also true for grains and nuts. Most of these contain little or no cholesterol (there are a few exceptions among the nuts). So whole grain breads and cereals are good choices for keeping your cholesterol in line.

For years, many people have "steered clear" of egg yolks because they supposedly had high concentrations of cholesterol. But recent research has found that yolks are generally okay. Nonetheless, you can always go with egg whites or cholesterol-free egg substitutes if you wish.

In summary, your choices are many and varied when it comes to finding low cholesterol foods that are tasty and healthy at the same time.