Learn how to recognize low cholesterol recipes and food without looking at food labels. Learn why diets to reduce cholesterol use good olive oil. Enjoy healthy recipes from our extensive list of low cholesterol recipes.
Recipes and foods to avoid with high cholesterol
Rule of thumb to recognize high cholesterol fat without looking at the food labels? Low cholesterol fat or unsaturated fat is liquid, even at fridge temperature. Logically, high cholesterol fats or unsaturated fats are solid at room temperature.
When you need to use fat in low cholesterol recipes, these fats should come from so called unsaturated fat sources.
What you don’t want to find on food labels are the so called saturated fats. Nor do you want the so called hydrogenated fats or hydrogenated oils or worse: the partially hydrogenated trans fats which basically started off from low cholesterol oils that are turned into high cholesterol, solid fats to increase their shelflife.
Good olive oil
Why do people in the Mediterranean live to a good and healthy old age? Because their biggest source of fat is good olive oil, that is organic olive oil made from cold pressing. Olive oil that isn’t produced from cold pressing is extracted using heat and chemicals in order to produce more quantity with less quality.
Now do know that when you buy a bottle of the best olive oil, you don’t have a 100% unsaturated fat source in front of you. All oils are a combination of poly, mono, and saturated fats, even good olive oil. contains 14% of saturated fat.
When you do use fats and oils, use the table below to make a healthy choice: stick with those oils highest in monounsaturated fats and lowest in saturated fat. This ranks good old olive oil on top! Canola or rapeseed-oil is your best second choice, provided it comes from organic produce.
Oil | P | M |
Unsaturated |
Saturated |
Olive | 9% | 77% |
86% |
14% |
Canola | 36% | 58% |
94% |
6% |
Peanut | 34% | 48% |
82% |
18% |
Corn | 62% | 25% |
87% |
13% |
Soybean | 61% | 24% |
85% |
15% |
Sunflower | 77% | 14% |
91% |
9% |
Safflower | 77% | 14% |
91% |
9% |
Palm | 10% | 39% |
49% |
51% |
Coconut | 5% | 9% |
14% |
86% |
P=Polyunsaturated, M=Monounsaturated
Healthy ingredients
Now you know which low cholesterol fat and oil to look for, make sure you fork out some extra money and buy organic oils. Rest assure, the money is well spent since organic food will boost your immune system and increase your overall health.
From a paleo diet’s perspective, do know that early humans didn’t have bottles of oil to their disposal. In other words: go easy with oils out of a bottle and eat lots of vegetables and fruits. Get the most of your fat out of fish and meat (not to mention avocados and eggs) and use oils from a bottle as a "luxury item", not as a main source of calories.
What doctors say
Are you ready for some chemistry that will help you understand the food labels and stay away from the foods to avoid with high cholesterol? Here goes: you want to choose unsaturated fats also known as trans fats. And only that!
Foods you want to avoid with high cholesterol are foods rich in saturated fats. Saturated fats contain high cholesterol numbers and increase the cholesterol in your blood which could increase the risk of a heart disease. Saturated fats are most "hard fats", that is, any fat that’s not liquid at room temperature. Of these saturated fats, the trans fast lower your good ldl cholesterol and increase your bad hdl cholesterol.
Especially misleading are the so called "hydrogenated oils": these oils went from liquid to solid fat thanks to added hydrogen. What we have been eating for centuries are saturated fats from diary products and meat. Saturated fats that originate from hydrogenated oils however are completely alien to our bodies.
So how to lower your cholesterol since your body does need fats? You substitute saturated fats with unsaturated fats:
- polyunsaturated fats are mostly found in grain products, sunflower oil, fish and sea food – herring, salmon, mackerel, halibut – soybeans and logically fish oil, soybean oil and corn
- monounsaturated oils like olive oil, peanut oil and canola oil are far better than polyunsaturated oils when it comes to cooking, frying and baking.
If you want to cook healthy, do only use organic oils: they not only have a positive impact on your cholesterol levels, but not having any pesticide nor herbicide residues, they will boost your immune system and therefore improve your overall health.
How to easily avoid cholesterol foods
Simple rules of thumb to spot foods and recipes with low cholesterol:
- lowering your cholesterol is easy when you don’t use butter, lard nor ghee to bake or cook. In stead use oils like olive oil, sunflower oil, corn oil or soybean oil. fried recipes normally are high in cholesterol.
- low cholesterol cooking alternatives are grilling, broiling, steaming, using the microwave or baking in stead of frying.
- low cholesterol recipes will ask for heavy or non stick pans so you can cook with little or no added fat.
- low cholesterol foods are usually very fresh ingredients with a very little shelflife.
List of low cholesterol recipes
Browse through the first 2 months of recipes I ate in 2012 when I lowered my LDL cholesterol by consuming meals with less saturated fats and less cholesterol. It was the first time I went on a successful diet, with therefore maybe not the most glamorous meals, but the results did count!
Leave a comment when you have a low cholesterol recipe you want to share with the rest of us.
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