Eating your way to heart health

My daughter loved Pepa Pig, and believe it or not, I learned a few things. For example, it is always important to eat your five. Five what you ask, well five fruits and vegetables!

A diet that is rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds is a diet rich in fibre and micro-nutrients. Together these can help fuel our body and lower cholesterol, an important mediator of heart disease. Additionally, when our diet is packed full of these heart healthy foods, we have an opportunity to limit the amount of sodium we eat on a daily basis. Sodium accounts for about 1 in every 3 cases of high blood pressure in Canada. 1 in every 3 cases of high blood pressure!

— As an aside - with the exception of smoking in men, high blood pressure is one the greatest drivers of heart disease. And you can change that with diet… I think that is pretty cool. —

So I may caution people from taking advice from social media, I think Pepa Pig has a pretty go idea. So go ahead and eat your five!

If you would like a functional medicine and naturopathic approach to preventing or treating heart disease, schedule an appointment with Dr. Brandon Testa, ND at Grassroots Naturopathic Medicine.