Bestfoods to Lower Lower Cholesterol

A high LDL cholesterol level is medically known as hypercholesterolemia. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), over one-third of American adults have high levels of LDL or “bad” cholesterol. This increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, including heart disease and heart attacks.

Cholesterol falls under three categories: low-density lipoprotein (LDL), very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL) that may need medications and high-density lipoprotein (HDL). LDL and VLDL are bad for your health, while HDL is good for your health.

People of all ages, ethnicities and genders can have high cholesterol.

Certain factors put you at a higher risk, such as excessive smoking, obesity, large waist circumference, poor diet, lack of exercise, hypothyroidism and diabetes. Most of these factors are within your control. Genetics is one risk factor that is beyond your control.

As high cholesterol does not present any symptoms, you need to get your cholesterol levels checked from time to time.

A lipid panel test measures your total, LDL and HDL cholesterol, along with triglycerides. The CDC defines the following blood cholesterol levels as healthy:

Total cholesterol: less than 200 mg/dL (milligrams per deciliter of blood)
LDL cholesterol: less than 100 mg/dL
HDL cholesterol: 40 mg/dL or higher
Triglycerides: less than 150 mg/dL
If not controlled early enough, high cholesterol can lead to health complications like chest pain, heart attacks and strokes.

By making changes to your diet and lifestyle, you can lower your cholesterol. Several foods can help keep your cholesterol at healthy levels.

1. Oatmeal
Having a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast daily is another easy way to lower your high cholesterol level. The high soluble fiber content in oatmeal helps lower LDL.

It reduces the absorption of cholesterol into your bloodstream. Fiber also fills you up quickly and helps you avoid mindless eating.
In addition, eating oats regularly is associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes.

Eat a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast daily.
You can also add oatmeal to smoothies or use it in baked goods.

2. Almonds
The heart-healthy monounsaturated fats, polyunsaturated fats and fiber in almonds help raise good HDL cholesterol and reduce the bad LDL levels.

A 2011 study published in Nutrition Review found that consumption of tree nuts like almonds help reduce LDL cholesterol, a primary target for coronary disease prevention, by 3 to 19 percent.

In addition, a 2015 study published in the Journal of American Heart Association states that daily almond consumption may be a simple dietary strategy to prevent the onset of cardio-metabolic diseases.

Almonds are a great snack or topping for salads, cereal and yogurt. Eat a handful of almonds a day and remember moderation is key. Other nuts and seeds such as walnuts and flaxseeds are also beneficial for reducing blood cholesterol levels.

3. Orange Juice
Sweet, tangy and juicy oranges are another superfood that has cholesterol-lowering properties.

In a 2000 study published in the American Society for Clinical Nutrition journal, researchers found that orange juice improves blood lipid profiles in people who have hypercholesterolemia. This happens due to the presence of vitamin C, folate and flavonoids like hesperidin in oranges.

Drink 2 to 3 cups of orange juice daily. Freshly extracted juice is a good option. You can also drink plant sterol-fortified orange juice. Phytosterols also help lower total cholesterol to some extent.
Alternatively, you can eat a few oranges daily.

4. Salmon
The omega-3 fatty acids called EPA and DHA found in salmon provide protection against high cholesterol. It helps lower triglycerides and boosts good HDL cholesterol slightly, thus lowering the risk of heart disease.

In addition, salmon is low in cholesterol and saturated fat.

Eat at least 2 servings of salmon each week. Baked and grilled salmon are the best options. A serving of salmon is about 2 to 3 ounces.
You can even take fish oil supplements after consulting your doctor.

5. Soybeans and Soy Products
Soybeans and other soy products offer a complete plant-based protein that is great for those who suffer from high cholesterol.

Although soy may not lower total cholesterol to a great extent, it can still lower bad LDL cholesterol. This high-protein food contains high levels of polyunsaturated fats, fiber, vitamins and minerals as well as low levels of saturated fat.

A study published in 2011 in the Journal of American College of Nutrition found that eating 1 to 2 servings (15 to 30 grams) of soy protein daily has a significant impact on serum lipoprotein risk factors for coronary heart disease.

To help lower your cholesterol, include more soybean, tofu, soy flour, edamame and enriched soy milk in your diet.

6. Green Tea
Drinking a few cups of green tea daily is one of simplest ways to reduce total and LDL cholesterol levels. Green tea intake lowers fasting serum total and LDL cholesterol in adults, according to a 2011 meta-analysis of 14 randomized controlled trials that was published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

There are several compounds in green tea that prevent the absorption of cholesterol in the digestive tract and aid in its excretion.

In addition, this healthy beverage prevents plaque buildup in the arteries and reduces the risk of having a heart attack or stroke.

Drink 3 to 4 cups of green tea (hot or iced) daily.
You can also take green tea supplements, after consulting your doctor.

7. Olive Oil
Olive oil is high in monounsaturated fat that helps lower bad LDL cholesterol levels. This is turn lowers the risk of heart disease and stroke. In addition, it is rich in vitamin E, an antioxidant that is good for your heart and overall health.

Use 2 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil daily as a replacement for less healthy oils. You can use this oil to sauté vegetables, make salad dressing or as a dip for bread.

Note: As olive oil is high in calories, avoid excessive use.

8. Avocados
Avocados are a good source of monounsaturated fats that can help reduce LDL levels in people who are overweight or obese. Monounsaturated fats also help raise HDL levels. Avocados also contain plant sterols that have cholesterol-lowering properties.

In addition, they are rich in protein, fiber, B-complex vitamins, vitamin K and several minerals that are good for your overall health.

Eat an avocado daily. You can add avocado slices to salads and sandwiches or eat them as a side dish.

9. Garlic
Garlic is another superfood that can help reduce high cholesterol. In addition, it prevents blood clots, reduces blood pressure and protects against heart disease.

According to a 2013 press release from the National Institute of Integrative Medicine, garlic extract is a safe and effective alternative to pharmaceutical blood pressure and cholesterol-lowering medications for many people.

Eat 2 to 3 raw garlic cloves on an empty stomach daily.
Use fresh garlic in your salad dressings and in cooking many types of dishes, soups and stews.
You can take garlic supplements after consulting your doctor for the correct dosage.

10. Dark Chocolate
Dark chocolate can also effectively reduce bad cholesterol and improve the level of good cholesterol in the blood.

According to a 2013 study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the component theobromine in dark chocolate is mainly responsible for its HDL cholesterol-raising effect.

The high level of antioxidants and flavonoids in dark chocolate prevent blood platelets from sticking together and keep the arteries unclogged. This in turn reduces the risk of heart attacks or strokes.

Eat 1 or 2 small pieces of dark chocolate with at least 60 percent cocoa on a regular basis.

Additional Tips

Strive to maintain a healthy weight.
Quit smoking.
Exercise for at least 30 minutes, 5 days a week.
Avoid alcohol. If you drink, do so in moderation.
Eat a diet low in saturated fats.
Avoid fried or fatty foods and excessive carbohydrates and processed sugars.
Avoid foods that contribute to bad cholesterol, such as red meat, full-fat dairy products, egg yolks and processed foods.

9 Reasons To Stop Drinking Any Kind of Pasteurized Milk

Pasteurization is a dangerous method of heating our foods with tragic side effects which are largely ignored bu the FDA and downplayed by the dairy industry. To accept these facts would be to surrender after a hundred-year war indiscriminately waged against all bacteria--a hundred-year war that has now turned to attack the immune systems of the public. Here are 9 reasons why pasteurization destroys the nutritional and enzymatic value of milk and why you need to avoid it.

Raw milk contains vast amounts of nutrients including beneficial bacteria such as lactobacillus acidolphilus, vitamins and enzmes, and only a very modest source of calcium (if left unpasteurized).

To understand what heat does to a good bacteria, we need to know about its structure. A bacterium is a single-celled organism. Think of it like a studio apartment, one room containing all the things a person needs to live: food, water, air. The walls of the apartment enclose the electrical wiring and gas pipes that deliver energy, along with the sewage pipes that get rid of waste products. In contrast to the size of this single-celled organism, even an animal as small as a mouse would be like a huge city with thousands of buildings and extensive infrastructure to keep it "alive."

When the temperature gets hot enough, the enzymes in the bacterium are denatured, meaning they change shape. This change renders them useless, and they're no longer able to do their work. The cell simply ceases to function. 

Heat can also damage the bacterium's cell envelope. Proteins and fatty acids making up the envelope lose their shape, weakening it. At the same time, fluid inside the cell expands as the temperature rises, increasing the internal pressure. The expanding fluid pushes against the weakened wall and causes it to burst, spilling out the guts of the bacterium. 

Pasteurization constitutes one of the milder forms of thermal processing. Ultra-high temperature and sterilization methods kill all microorganisms in the food, while milder heat treatments like thermization and pasteurization only kill some of them. Why not use a higher temperature if it will kill more pathogens? The answer is that higher temperatures change the characteristics of the food.

At higher temperatures, as with Ultra High Temperature Pasteurization, several things happen to milk that make it less desirable to consumers: 

High-Temp Pasteurization - Milk is heated to 161F for 31 seconds in order to sterilize the milk. The problem is that this also kills enzymes, much of the healthy microorganisms, and more importantly it denatures the proteins. Essentially, high-temp pasteurization kills the milk and makes it much more difficult for your body to digest. This can typically lead to inflammatory bowel disease, among others. 

Ultra-Pasteurized - This is the majority of our milk today, what you would typically find in a grocery store. Ultra-pasteurization heats the milk to 280F for only a few seconds. The reason for using ultra-pasteurization is because it kills everything. Ultra pasteurization not only kills potentially harmful bacteria in the milk, but also damages all of the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients originally contained in the milk. This process also kills the healthy enzymes which help your body digest the milk, and drinking it without the enzymes can lead to lactose intolerance.

Low-Temp Pasteurization - Milk is only heated to 145F. This is significant because it’s below the temperature that kills most of the beneficial enzymes and the proteins remain in-tact. The main downside to low-temp pasteurization is that some of the enzymes and probiotics can be damaged. But, by culturing (fermenting it with good bacteria) this dairy and making yogurt, kefir or amasai, many of those probiotics are added back. This also improves the digestibility of the dairy. Low-temp is the closest to raw milk products most of us in the US can get. 

Most cow's milk has measurable quantities of herbicides, pesticides, dioxins (up to 200 times the safe levels), up to 52 powerful antibiotics, blood, pus, feces, bacteria and viruses. 

9 REASONS TO STOP DRINKING PASTEURIZED MILK

1) Pasteurization Used To Mask Low-Quality Milk
Heat destroys a great number of bacteria in milk and thus conceals the evidence of dirt, pus and dirty dairy practices. It’s cheaper to produce dirty milk and kill the bacteria by heat, that to maintain a clean dairy and keep cows healthy. To combat the increase in pathogens milk goes through ‘clarification’, ‘filtering’, ‘bactofugation’ and two ‘deariation’ treatments. Each of these treatments uses heat ranging from 100-175 degrees Fahrenheit. Dairies count on many heat treatments to mask their inferior sanitary conditions: milk filled with pus, manure and debris. Consumer Reports found 44% of 125 pasteurized milk samples contained as many as 2200 organisms per cubic centimeter (fecal bacteria, coliforms)

2) Pasteurization Destroys Nutrients
It destroys vitamin C, and damages water soluble B vitamins diminishing the nutrient value of milk. Calcium and other minerals are made unavailable by pasteurization. The Maillard reaction, a chemical reaction between proteins and sugars, occurs at higher heats and causes browning, discoloring the milk. 

3) Pasteurization Destroys Enzymes
Milk enzymes, proteins, antibodies as well as beneficial hormones are destroyed by pasteurization resulting in devitalized ‘lifeless’ milk. Milk enzymes help digest lactose and both enzymes and milk proteins help to absorb vitamins. Protective enzymes in milk are inactivated, making it more susceptible to spoilage. 

4) Causes Asthma
Pasteurized milk causes asthma, and as a result doctors prescribe a diet without pasteurized dairy products. Milk triggers asthma by destabilizing MAST cells, which release histamines that cause inflammation, mucus production and bronchial spasm. Pasteurized milk is a partial food product that is missing digestive enzymes and nearly all of its beneficial bacteria. Pasteurized milk (with rare exceptions) comes from cows fed a ration based on corn and soy rather than pasture and forage. Pasteurization warps and distorts fragile proteins, making them allergenic. Unpasteurized milk is the opposite and heals and prevents asthma by stabilizing MAST cells and reducing inflammation as shown by dramatic lowering of C-reactive protein levels. Unpasteurized milk rebuilds immunity by allowing the safe consumption of biodiversity in our diets. These bacteria then re-colonize the gut and become our immune protective and digestive ecosystem armies.

5) Allergenic and Disease Causing FoodCow's milk is the number one allergic food in this country. The milk of each of the over 4,700 mammals on earth is formulated specifically for that species. There are special lactoferrins and immunoglobulins (cow specific immunizing stuff) that in humans serve as allergens. It has been well documented as a cause in diarrhea, cramps, bloating, gas, gastrointestinal bleeding, iron-deficiency anemia, skin rashes, atherosclerosis, and acne. It is the primary cause of recurrent ear infections in children. It has also been linked to insulin dependent diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, infertility, and leukemia. The protein lactalbumin, has been identified as a key factor in diabetes (and a major reason for NOT giving cows milk to infants). 89% of America's dairy herds have the leukemia virus. Cows diagnosed with Johne's Disease have diarrhea, and heavy fecal shedding of bacteria. This bacteria becomes cultured in milk, and is not destroyed by pasteurization. Occasionally, the milk-borne bacteria will begin to grow in the human host, and the results are irritable bowel syndrome and Crohn's Disease.

6) Kills Bone Density
The dairy industry has been hard at work the last 50 years convincing people that pasteurized dairy products such as milk or cheese increases bioavailable calcium levels. This is totally false. The pasteurization process only creates calcium carbonate, which has absolutely no way of entering the cells without a chelating agent. So what the body does is pull the calcium from the bones and other tissues in order to buffer the calcium carbonate in the blood. This process actually causes osteoporosis. Pasteurized dairy contains too little magnesium needed at the proper ratio to absorb the calcium. Most would agree that a minimum amount of Cal. to Mag Ratio is 2 to 1 and preferably 1 to 1. So milk, at a Cal/Mag ratio of 10 to 1, has a problem. You may put 1200 mg of dairy calcium in your mouth, but you will be lucky to actually absorb a third of it into your system. Over 99% of the body's calcium is in the skeleton, where it provides mechanical rigidity. Pasteurized dairy forces a calcium intake lower than normal and the skeleton is used as a reserve to meet needs. Long-term use of skeletal calcium to meet these needs leads to osteoporosis. Dairy is pushed on Americans from birth yet they have one of the highes risk of osteoporosis in the world. The test for pasteurization is called the negative alpha phosphatase test. When milk has been heated to 165 degrees (higher for UHT milk) and pasteurization is complete, the enzyme phosphatase is 100 percent destroyed. Guess what? This is the enzyme that is critical for the absorption of minerals including calcium! Phosphatase is the third most abundant enzyme in raw milk and those who drink raw milk enjoy increased bone density. Several studies have documented greater bone density and longer bones in animals and humans consuming raw milk compared to pasteurized.

7) Antibiotic Effectiveness
Pasteurization killed antibiotic effectiveness for all of us. By creating a commodity dairy market system that relies heavily on antibiotics fed to heifers and dry cows at CAFO (Confined Animal Feeding Operation) mega dairies to support massive milk production, the antibiotics now used in American hospitals for humans no longer work. Tens of thousands of Americans now die each year because of superbugs created by CAFO antibiotic abuse. MRSA and VRA drug resistance is now a major cause of death and there are fewer and sometimes no antibiotics left to kill the bad bugs and save human lives. FDA has conceded antibiotic use in farm animals must be phased out but refuses an outright ban or limit of the use of antibiotics in CAFO feed and instead testifies in defense of antibiotic use by the CAFO industry.

8) Cancer Fuel 
Of the almost 60 hormones, one is a powerful GROWTH hormone called Insulin- like Growth Factor ONE (IGF-1). By a freak of nature it is identical in cows and humans. Consider this hormone to be a "fuel cell" for any cancer... (the medical world says IGF-1 is a key factor in the rapid growth and proliferation of breast, prostate and colon cancers, and we suspect that most likely it will be found to promote ALL cancers). IGF-1 is a normal part of ALL milk... the newborn is SUPPOSED to grow quickly! What makes the 50% of obese American consumers think they need MORE growth? Consumers don't think anything about it because they do not have a clue to the problem... nor do most of our doctors. 

9) Forces Cows Out Of Green Pastures And Into Diseased World
Pasteurization kills cows on green pastures. Seventy-five years ago there were friendly cows on green pastures all over America. Pasteurization has effectively paved the pastures and now forces the cows to be fed soy protein concentrates and forty pounds of grain per day, along with antibiotics and hormones. These CAFO dairy feeds increase milk production to numbers never seen before in the history of earth. It is not uncommon for some CAFO dairy cows to produce twenty gallons of milk per day and be crowded into pens deep in manure with thousands of other cows. The stress of being milked up to four times per day and lying on artificial rubber beds shortens their lives to just forty months. A cow on pasture will produce much less milk (four to five gallons per day) and easily live ten years or more in true happiness and health. 

Try Coconut Milk
Compared to cow’s milk coconut milk is easier to digest because the body uses 3 less enzymes for its digestion as opposed to cow’s milk. It also contains a high level of omega 3, 6 and 9 fats along with high amounts of amino acids. This excellent combination of fats and amino acids make it a complete meal in and of itself.

The high level of omega 3, 6 and 9 fats and protein in this milk are more bio-available to humans compared to all other animal fats and most vegetable fats. This bio-availability results in the body’s ability to assimilate all its nutrients.

It’s very healing to the digestive tract and even heals damage done to the system in cases of IBS, Crohn’s disease and severe malnutrition.

Coconut milk also helps maintain balanced blood sugar levels by being a good source of manganese. This mineral is usually deficient in people with blood sugar issues.