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Cholesterol
Many things affect your cholesterol levels. Read nutrition information on labels and menus and choose foods lower in saturated and trans fats.
High total cholesterol is a risk factor for heart disease. However, there are also two main types of cholesterol: low density lipoprotein (LDL); and high density lipoprotein (HDL) that are even more telling of your risk for heart disease.
You want your LDL cholesterol (bad cholesterol) to be as low as possible. LDL cholesterol sticks to your blood vessel walls and causes plaque formation.You want your HDL cholesterol (good cholesterol) to be as high as possible. HDL cleans up the LDL cholesterol from blood vessel walls and returns it to your liver for removal.
Many things affect your cholesterol levels. For example, the type and amount of fat you eat can have an impact. The worst type of fat is trans fat. Trans fats raise your bad cholesterol and lower your good cholesterol, which raises your risk for heart disease.
Trans fats are so bad for us that some provinces have proposed to ban trans fats from school menus. As well, Health Canada has asked the food industry to lower the level of trans fats in foods to less than 5% of total fat in the next two years or it will impose mandatory regulations.
The bottom line is that you need to make informed choices. Read nutrition information on labels and menus and choose foods lower in saturated and trans fats. Cook with vegetable oils and soft margarines and limit the amount of prepared baked goods, snack foods, deep-fried foods, fatty meats, and full fat milk products that you and your family eat.
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