George Foreman Cooking Blog

Heart Healthy

Being good to your heart for Valentine’s Day

For Valentine’s Day this year, George Foreman would like to spread the love by encouraging you to make a commitment to be good to your heart (and the hearts of all your loved ones that gather around your table). Be good to yourself by focusing this year on maintaining a healthy diet that’s good for your heart, so you can be around for many more Valentine’s Days to come.

Know the Facts

If you haven’t made a heart smart commitment before or you’ve been avoiding thinking about it, you may not know too much about how to eat healthy for your heart – specifically what all the terminology means when doctors talk LDL cholesterol, triglycerides and other cholesterol related words. If you’re in need of an overview of the basics, read our Being Heart Smart article to help get you started.

Knock Out the Fat

Fat, particularly saturated and trans fats, are not your heart’s friend. To help promote a healthy heart, cut as much fat as you can from your diet. To start knocking fat out of your diet, it’s not necessary to completely change what you’re eating – just be more focused in making sure your meals are healthy.

Always trim meats before you cook them. This cuts the excess fat off the meat, so you’re getting the protein you need without adding as much fat to your diet. When possible, also try buying leaner meats and using them in place of their more fattening protein cousins – buffalo or venison, for example, are both leaner than regular beef.

For even healthier meals, cook meats on your George Foreman grill. Grilling can be a healthier method of cooking, in general, because you’re not adding oils, butters or creams to sauces like you do in baking or sautéing. In addition, your George Foreman grill will help knock out even more fat, so healthy cooking is easy without a lot of extra work.

Watch Additives

When you’re cooking fresh, you don’t really have to worry about chemical or synthetic additives in your food, but you do have to pay attention to what you’re adding.

A healthy piece of chicken isn’t so healthy if you cook it in a stick of butter. For grilling, the nonstick plates of your grill are designed to cook without adding oil or butter to “season” the cooking surface. Don’t add oil or butter, because they’re not needed and just add extra fat and calories.

For sauces and toppings, always make sure to use light oils – particularly olive oil. Mayo Clinic Nutritionist, Katherine Zeratsky explains that this is, “a healthier type of fat that can lower your risk of heart disease by reducing the total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad”) cholesterol levels in your blood.” In addition, use low-fat alternatives when you add things like milk or cheese. By cutting a few calories and fat grams here and there, the meal is healthier overall and better for you.

Diversify Your Diet

Eating healthy successfully and being good to your heart while doing it is all about diversifying your diet. You don’t want to be bad to your taste buds while being good to your heart, because it will probably only be a temporary fix. Limited diets get boring, making them easy to break. Instead of limiting yourself, try diversifying instead.

Keep your family’s Hamburger Fridays, but do Tuna Steak Tuesdays to change up your protein and add some vital Omega-3 fatty acids to your diet for your heart. Then, when Hamburger Friday rolls around, try using special toppings on the burgers to add in more vegetables – and even possibly some fruit – to make it a healthier meal. Remember, little changes add up, so each change you make is a step towards a healthy diet and a happy heart.

Tags: healthy diet that’s good for your heart