What About Vegan Diets For Lowering Cholesterol?

Plant foods (with a few very rare exceptions) do not contain cholesterol. An all-plant foods diet is a simple way to avoid cholesterol. Eating no animal products at all will help you lower your bloodstream cholesterol levels about 15%, no more, since your body continues to make its own cholesterol. However, vegan diets are an easy way to manage cholesterol, at least in terms of knowing what to buy.

Lowering Cholesterol 1-2-3

No matter what your food preference, you can use diet to lower your cholesterol levels in three simple steps.

1. Never overeat. Excess sugar, excess alcohol, excess fat, and excess calories in general are converted into triglycerides. Some triglycerides are stored in fat cells. Some triglycerides find their way into the bile ducts and gallbladder and are destined for excretion from the body, but they compete with cholesterol for the bile salts that give them a ride. Eat too much food of any kind, and your body has to work harder to get rid of excess cholesterol.
2. Go nuts. Peanuts and peanut butter, almonds and almond butter, and walnuts eaten in moderation (up to about 3-1/2 oz or 100 g a day) typically lower not just cholesterol but also weight, even though they are high-calorie foods and increase total calories consumed. Even better, eat nuts or peanuts about 90 minutes before mealtime to reduce your appetite for high-fat and high-sugar foods that can defeat your best efforts at managing cholesterol.
3. Eat other foods that are rich in fibers that lower cholesterol. Oat bran (but no wheat bran) contains soluble fiber that binds cholesterol and carries it out of your body, as well as stimulating the release of a hormone called cholecystikinin, which helps you feel fuller. Eggplants and okra are also rich in soluble fiber. Beans contain different fibers that bind cholesterol and help control your appetite. Soy protein (such as tofu) lowers LDL cholesterol if eaten on a regular basis, not dramatically, but usually by about 5%. Apples, oranges, and strawberries are rich in a soluble fiber called pectin, which lowers cholesterol and helps your body regulate excesses of estrogen and testosterone.

Especially when you are hungry, be sure to eat high-fiber foods before you, for instance, eat bacon and eggs or a juicy, fatty steak. You'll get the fiber your body needs and fill up before you get the fat your body can't handle.

See Also: Top Protein Sources For Vegans

There's just one downside to using diet to control cholesterol. The way cholesterol testing is done in the United States, you can get an erroneous reading of your LDL cholesterol levels when you do an exceptionally good job of avoiding eating too many calories and especially too many sweets. American medical labs don't measure LDL cholesterol directly. They estimate it by subtracting VLDL and HDL cholesterol along with triglycerides from total blood lipids. If you eat less so you lower your triglycerides, the formula labs use to estimate LDL cholesterol will give you a higher LDL number. Don't call your diet a failure if your triglycerides are down and your LDL is up. It could just be a fluke in lab measurement.