For those who have high cholesterol, they should be smart when choosing foods to eat. One of tasty food that less safe for people with high cholesterol is seafood. But in fact, seafood are high in omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients which are good for health.
If you don’t want to miss any benefit of fishes and clams, read these safe ways to eat seafood for those who have high cholesterol from HelloSehat.
1. Right Portion
Everything that is too much is not good, include foods. For you who want to eat seafood without worry about being high cholesterol, limit your portion! You can only eat one portion o seafood for once eating. As example, one portion has 35 grams weight (5 medium seafood), a medium squid (about 45 grams), or a portion of clam about 90 grams.
2. Watch How the Cooking Process
What is more damaging to cholesterol is not the seafood so much as the way it is prepared. Here are some general tips and suggestions for preparing seafood to be as heart-healthy and low in cholesterol as possible:
Do:
Bake, boil, grill, or cook with little to no oil
Season with spices, garlic, and herbs
Add lemon juice
Don't:
Fry, sauté in butter or oil
Serve in a creamy or buttery sauce
Add unnecessary salt when cooking and eating
Serve with over-processed carbohydrates such as white pasta
3. Pair with Fiber Food
Fiber can helps lower your overall cholesterol level and your LDL (bad) cholesterol. That’s why it is good to adding nuts like peas and beans as your side dish while you are eating seafood.
Tahu and tempe also good to be your seafood’s side dish. Because, protein from soybeans can prevent coronary heart disease by lowering LDL cholesterol and triglycerides.. You can also eat fruits before or after eating seafood.
4. Adding Spices
To add the flavour and keep the seafood humidity, you can adding spices and other ingredients as salt substitute. This cooking method will makes food aroma more waken, but it still low cholesterol.
Some spice can also help lowering cholesterol, like garlic which reported can lowered total cholesterol and triglyceride levels by up to 20 mg/dL. Because of that, adding garlic for ingredients can be the safest way to keep your blood cholesterol level stable when eating seafood.
5. Add Lemon Squeeze
You can also add lemon squeeze on the top of your seafood. Like all citrus fruit, lemons are a very good source of vitamin C and flavonoids (eriocitrin and limonin) which are significantly reduced total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides and phospholipids in the blood serum of rats.