Today we managed without a problem to stay under the 200 mg cholesterol intake: we had pork meat for lunch and dinner, and chose all other food items – tidbits included – cholesterol free.
The quest for a simple, nutritious and zero cholesterol breakfast continues. Today I added more oats and less water to my oatmilk and blended it for a long time, whilst doing me dishes.
Blending longer than 1 minute results in an airy, light drink, but the taste was still not like milk. Adding honey and a teaspoon of organic brown sugar still didn’t make something as delicious as milk nor soy milk. Maybe I need to add in some almonds or simply add some soy milk powder to improve on the taste? Anybody with a delicious and nutritious zero cholesterol breakfast, please share it in a comment!
For lunch organic brown rice noodles mee hoon (without any unpronounceable substances, you can’t be eating diapers every day), fried with 60 grams (2 oz) of pork meat a person, with beansprouts, cabbage, spring onion, soy sauce, spices and some freshly squeezed lime juice. Since we fry on low temperature, we use organic olive oil for cooking. So the only cholesterol comes from the pork meat, which like yesterday results in an estimated 48 mg of cholesterol consumed per person:
For dinner: pan-fried pork with mixed salad, cucumber, red sweet pepper, rucola, boiled potato with the same hummus dip of yesterday and for drinks a nice tasting smoothie with orange juice of 3 oranges, a few strawberries, some grapes, a peach and some icecubes: no sugar needed. The pork is seasoned with salt, black pepper and red pepper and fried in a bit of olive oil in a non stick pan:
Do know that the meat portion is as small as that: 110 gram (about 4 oz) and that I take seconds when it comes to potato and salad. At 11 pm we did feel a bit hungry, so we finished a 2 servings package of roasted groundnuts: zero cholesterol, 29,2 gram total fat, 6.4 gram saturated fat and zero grams trans fat.
Surprisingly, these roasted ground nuts contain almost 50% more total fat than the unroasted groundnuts from yesterday?????
Well, it turns out that unroasted and roasted groundnuts do have the same amount of fat (you don’t add fat by simply roasting) but: the "serving portions" mentioned on today’s package is 50% more than on yesterday’s package, hence the fat amount for the bigger serving is obviously bigger.
So when it comes to reading and comparing nutrition labels, don’t be fooled by the serving size, but compare the listings that list ingredients per 100 gram of the product.
The only cholesterol for this evening was found only in the pork meat. Since the meat is the same as the one we use for our noodle lunches, calculations are easy: 85 gram of this pork meat contains 72 mg cholesterol, so our portions of 110 gram contain 93 mg of cholesterol.
Total daily cholesterol consumption = an estimated 141 mg:
- Breakfast: 0mg
- Lunch: 48 mg from pork meat
- Dinner: 93 mg from a bigger piece of pork meat
Once you get the hang of it, lowering your daily cholesterol intake isn’t too difficult when you:
- eliminate dairy products,
- cook with olive oil,
- make your own vinaigrettes from scratch
- keep your meat portions small
- and make sure to only munch away (when the urge is there) on cholesterol free tidbits or have ripe fruits at bay
The opposite is also true: it is very easy to eat too much cholesterol a day: in the supermarket I saw an egg containing 293 mg of cholesterol. That means when you consume that egg, all the other fooditems you eat should be cholesterol free or you will surpass the daily recommended cholesterol intake for a healthy person of 300 mg.
Other than that: make sure not to be fooled with nutrition information based on tiny servings from different sizes. always compare the values mentioned per 100 gram of each item.
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