DASH Recommendations for Heart Health

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- [Narrator] Have you been looking for a heart-healthy way to eat that is balanced, flexible, and requires no special foods?

Then the DASH eating plan might be for you.

Hello, my name is Nancy Routch, and I'm on the Penn State Extension Food Families and Health Team, and I would like to talk about an easy-to-follow eating plan that will change your life, the DASH eating plan.

DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension.

This diet is high in fruits and vegetables and low in sodium, and by following the DASH eating plan, individuals may be able to reduce blood pressure and other cardiovascular risk factors to establish a heart-healthy eating style for life.

This plan is simple and recommends: Eating vegetables, fruits, and whole grains.

Choosing fat-free or low-fat dairy products, fish, poultry, beans, nuts, and vegetable oils.

Cutting back on foods that are high in saturated fats, such as red meat, full-fat dairy products, and tropical oils such as coconut, palm kernel and palm oils.

And limiting sweets and sugar-sweetened beverages.

The DASH diet was originally implemented as a dietary plan to lower blood pressure.

At that time, research was conducted to test the benefits of the DASH diet.

The results of these studies proved that the DASH diet lowered blood pressure and LDL, low-density lipoprotein or bad cholesterol, in the blood, two major risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Now we know that the DASH eating plan has many other advantages for health.

Focusing on whole foods, this heart-healthy plan is high in fiber and low in saturated fats and added sugars.

It may also reduce the risk of stroke and heart disease.

This heart-healthy eating plan also provides nutrients that are in short supply in many American diets.

It can be a way of eating for the whole family.

Overall, the guidelines in the DASH eating plan emphasize choosing foods low in saturated fats and lower in sodium and rich in potassium, calcium, magnesium, fiber and protein.

Here are a few simple ways to make following the DASH diet easier.

Choose fresh, frozen, or no added sodium foods.

Eat vegetables at every meal.

Include fruit at every meal.

Limit your meat intake to six ounces or less each day and plan meatless meals at least one to two times a week.

Eat more legumes like dry beans, peas and lentils as a protein source.

Use fat-free or low-fat dairy products.

Cut your serving sizes of butter, margarine and salad dressings in half to limit your fat intake.

Use vegetable oil in place of a solid fat in your skillet.

Snack choices can include fat-free or low-fat yogurt, fresh fruit, raw vegetables, hummus or beans spreads, unsalted plain popcorn, homemade whole grain cereal mixes with nuts, seeds and dried fruit, whole grain crackers with part skim mozzarella string cheese, and low-fat whole-grain pretzels.

And finally, read food labels and choose items that are made from whole food ingredients.

These will be lower in sodium, added sugars and fat.

The DASH eating plan is just one part of living a heart-healthy lifestyle.

Improve your overall health by combining it with other lifestyle changes like getting regular physical activity, managing and coping with stress, getting plenty of sleep, limiting alcohol intake, maintaining a healthy weight, and if you smoke, quitting.

Do your heart a favor and start thinking DASH today.

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