Select Your Food Wisely And Lower Your Blood Pressure

It is said that there are nearly 73 million adults in the US alone today suffering from high blood pressure and that more than 50,000 people will die as a direct result of this problem during the next year. Sadly, many of these deaths are unnecessary and one of the quickest and simplest ways to lower your blood pressure is to alter your eating habits.

There have been major changes in our lifestyles in the last few years and one especially significant change for a lot of us is seen in the food we eat. The days of three square home-cooked meals every day have gone and have been largely replaced with convenience and fast foods which has resulted in numerous different problems including the growing problems of both obesity and high blood pressure. Happily, this is one state of affairs that it is very simple to reverse.

Fast and convenience foods carry two main problems and they are salt and fat, both of which have been shown to increase your blood pressure.

Salt is added to a huge range of food during processing to both add flavor and act as a preservative and your daily consumption of salt can be enormous without you adding salt to your food at the dinner table. Canned foods in particular usually contain very high levels of salt as do pizza and frozen dinners, so look closely at the labeling and see precisely how much salt (sodium) products have in them before you pick them. Your overall daily intake of sodium should be as low as you can get it but ought not to be more than 2,400 milligrams which is about a teaspoonful.

Fat is another enemy when it comes to high blood pressure and, while a little bit of fat in your food is good for you, you should avoid high fat food wherever possible. In addition to fats and oils themselves (like butter, vegetable oil, lard, margarine and meat dripping) many of our favorite foods are very high in fat. Watch out for foods like cream, pastries, sausages, french fries, cream cheese, ice cream, regular ground beef, cheddar, pies, salami, cookies, fried chicken, corned beef, whole milk, bacon and nearly all fast foods.

At this point you may be thinking that this list covers almost everything you eat and that if you cut all of these out of your diet you are going to starve to death. Well, the good news is that this is far from the case and that the choice of foods still open to you is enormous. There are two ways to go about solving this problem.

The first is to simply replace items in your present diet with food items that are lower in salt or fat. For instance, replace normal full-fat milk with half-fat or semi-skimmed milk and regular ground beef with ground lean beef.

The second is to add new foods into your diet and replace some of your present favorite high fat foods. For instance, add more fresh fruit and vegetables into your meal planning and replace french fries with boiled potatoes and rather than frying your food {try grilling|grill it. Not only is grilled fish and meat far better for you but it also tastes very good.

High blood pressure does not have to be a problem for most of us and a few simply changes to what we eat can resolve the problem quickly and easily.

TheBloodPressureCenter.com provides information and advice of all aspects of controlling your blood pressure including choosing the best blood pressure monitor for use at home to selecting foods that lower blood pressure