Total: Cholesterol
Cholesterol is a molecule that is essential for all animal life. Having high levels of some cholesterol can increase your risk of heart disease. Cholesterol can build up in your blood vessels and make it difficult for blood to flow freely around your body.
Cholesterol is made up of different components. Here are some quick and easy explanations to help you:
Total Cholesterol
Represents all the cholesterol in your blood. The good and the bad. This is usually the first number on the list when you get your cholesterol blood results back.
Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL)
This is commonly known as the ‘bad cholesterol’. It carries fats from your digestive system into your blood stream and dumps it there. This can lead to blocking of your blood vessels and things like hear attack and stroke
High Density Lipoprotein (HDL)
This is commonly known as the good cholesterol. It acts like a little vacuum cleaner in the body and carries bad fats from your blood back to your liver, where it is broken down and essentially you get rid of it.
Cholesterol Ratio
This is an indication of the balance between your good cholesterol and everything else. The lower this number is the better, ideally it needs to be under 4mmol/L.
Foods that are high in ‘saturated fat’ are the ones that contribute to high levels of the bad LDL cholesterol within your body. These foods come from animal products and include dairy products such as milk, butter, and cream. Red meat and processed meat like steak, chops, bacon, sausages, and salami. Also fried foods and baked goods, cookies, cakes, and doughnuts.
Foods that contribute to the production of the good stuff, “HDL” cholesterol, are: olive oil, particularly extra virgin olive oil, whole-grains including wild rice, oats and quinoa and also beans, legumes, lentils. Higher fibre fruit such as prunes, apples, pears, avocados are also included. Fatty fish such as salmon, terakihi and sardines. Nuts like almonds, cashews, brazil nuts and chia seeds are also included in this category.
Each meal from your breakfast to your dinner within FastTrack- Kai Ä Nuku is loaded full of foods that are high in the good stuff (HDL). We have taken the thinking away and you don’t have to do the research into the foods that will help manage your cholesterol – This is done for you! If you have a family history of heart disease or high cholesterol, currently have heart disease or generally want to make sure you manage your cholesterol well FastTrack food (kai) can definitely help with this.
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