Lower Cholesterol With Food

     Statin drugs are extremely popular in the United States because one third of all Americans have high cholesterol. Doctors are apparently telling people that they have a family predisposition for high cholesterol before they suggest they take a statin drug. I do object to them lying to people, but in the end 97% of Americans will not stop eating meat, and that same 97% is very hard to manipulate as far as how much meat they eat.

     Anytime I look up the statistics over the last 30 years they are consistent: no more than 3% of Americans eat vegetarian in any given decade and the amount of people who eat vegan within that 3% is 1% of the American population, so about a third of vegetarians are vegans, and that's it.

     America has factory farming, and to some degree subsidizes at least the water going out to some farms so that beef, chicken, pork and dairy products are cheaper than they should be, making Americans eat more of them than they should. Avoiding high cholesterol is not that hard, for most Americans it just means eating one 4 oz serving of meat per day and everything else should be vegetarian.

     The American Cancer Society, the American Heart Association, the American lung Association and the American Diabetes Association all recommend keeping protein levels under 15% of diet. Eating just one serving of meat per day results in a diet that falls between 13 and 15% protein, perfect for fighting off infectious disease, and for preventing cancer, heart disease, lung disease, and diabetes.

     Many people think that you cannot lower cholesterol without statin drugs. This is just not true. In a study out of the University of Toronto a few years ago patients were able to lower their bad cholesterol by around 30% in only 30 days just by eating a plant-based diet. Without going full vegan you can incorporate the right kinds of foods that are known to lower cholesterol like oats, beans, barley and other foods high in soluble fiber, and of course limit the amount of cholesterol-ladened animal products in your diet by eating only one serving of meat per day.

     People get confused between cholesterol and Omega fats, and think that fish only has omega-3 fats and no cholesterol. Fish has just as much cholesterol as any other meat but you can still have one serving of fish per day or one serving of chicken per day because your liver can adjust for that much dietary cholesterol.

     The only sources of cholesterol in the human diet come from animal products, and it is not needed for existence because the human liver produces about a gram of cholesterol every day. Cholesterol is a waxy substance that lines the veins and arteries and gives strength to the walls.

     The human liver can only lower its cholesterol production by about 300 mg based upon sensing cholesterol in the bloodstream from dietary sources. This is why the limit of one serving of meat per day was established, because 4 oz of fish, chicken, pork, or beef has less than 300 mg of cholesterol.

     So by limiting your diet to no more than one serving of meat per day, and by incorporating foods rich in soluble fibers to replace the other meat meals, bad cholesterol numbers could be lowered by at least 30% like at the University of Toronto, though it will take longer than a month if you don't go full vegan. Read more about this from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.