Zar – The Portfolio Diet

It’s been discovered that there’s a group of foods that can reduce your cholesterol much more effectively than just avoiding saturated fat. The group includes soy protein, nuts, oats, barley, legumes and some veggies such as eggplant and okra. By eating some items from this group every day, the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol was reduced by 20% in one year. This is the same as taking a drug that lowers cholesterol.
Compared to following a diet low in saturated fat, in 24 weeks the low saturated fat diet reduced the LDL cholesterol by 3% and the Portfolio diet reduced it by 13%.
To follow the diet you’ll need to make a big effort to include the foods in your diet everyday. Below are some ways to do this.
Eat 5 handfuls of raw, unsalted nuts per week.
Oats can be eaten for breakfast either in the form of muesli or porridge.
25g of soy protein can be found in 2 slices of soy and linseed bread, 250ml soy milk and 100g of tofu. Other options include soy burgers and edamame beans.
Viscous fibre – this is also found in oats or barley. You also need 1 serve of eggplant, beans or lentils. Also 5 tsps physyllium husks spread over the day.
Plant sterols – 2 tsps of plant sterol margarine or a plant sterol supplement.
To us youngsters this may seem all very over the top. However if you are suffering from high cholesterol and you’re keen to avoid medication this might be what you’re looking for. It’ll take a little time to get into a routine of incorporating these foods into your daily diet but you may find that it’s worth your time to increase your health in this way.