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NUTRITION BASICS
Carbs:
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Diets:
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Fats:
- About Cholesterol: Detailed description of cholesterol including the difference between "bad" and "good" types of cholesterol, the medical risks of unhealthy levels of cholesterol, and common misconceptions about cholesterol.
- Check out these ideas for Fat Substitutes.
- Cholesterol News: Read articles about the latest research on cholesterol and your health.
- Cholesterol- What Your Level Means: A short illustrated article describing what cholesterol is, what levels of cholesterol you should aim for, and how you can improve your cholesterol levels.
- Cooking for Lower Cholesterol: Learn how to prepare meals that will help you achieve higher levels of "good" cholesterol and lower levels of "bad" cholesterol.
- Count Your Fat Grams Worksheet: Determine your ideal weight, the daily calories needed to maintain that weight, and your maximum allowance of fat grams per day.
- Face the Fats: The American Heart Association’s page on fat facts including quizzes and interactive calculators.
- High Blood Cholesterol and Triglycerides: A comprehensive overview from U.S. News & World Report.
- How Can I Monitor My Cholesterol, Blood Pressure, and Weight?: A chart you can use to track your progress toward the goals you have set with your provider for healthier levels of cholesterol, blood pressure, and weight.
- Know Your Fats: Some fats in food have a bad effect on your cholesterol levels, but other types of fat can be beneficial. Find out the difference between saturated, unsaturated, and trans-fat foods, and why you should decrease the unhealthy fats and increase the healthy fats you eat.
- Make Healthy Food Choices: A heart-healthy diet is delicious and varied. Learn how to make smart choices whether you are cooking at home or eating out so that you can enjoy flavorful foods yet keep your cholesterol in check.
- Managing Your Cholesterol: What to know, what to do. How to understand your cholesterol levels, develop a treatment plan with your provider, and maintain healthy cholesterol levels through lifestyle changes and medication.
- Meet the Fats: Your chance to get better acquainted with the Fats family- the Bad Fats Brothers and Better Fats Sisters.
- Talk with Your Health Care Provider About High Cholesterol: Basic overview of what high cholesterol is, what to do to prevent unhealthy cholesterol levels, and questions to ask your provider about cholesterol.
- Trans Fats: Trans fats raise your “bad” cholesterol levels and lower your “good” cholesterol levels. Eating trans fats increases your risk of developing heart disease – learn to avoid them.
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Fiber:
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Fruits & Vegetables
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General
- America on the Move: Allows users to keep track of their physical activity (steps) and dietary progress.
- Cyberkitchen by Shape Up America: Shows how to balance food intake with physical activity. Also provides information on how to achieve and maintain a healthy weight through interactive assessment, meal planning, and recipes.
- Diet and Lifestyle Recommendations: A healthy diet and lifestyle are your best weapons to fight cardiovascular disease.
- Eat a Wide Variety of Foods: A heart-healthy diet includes a variety of foods including grains, vegetables, fruits, and heart-healthy sources of protein and fats. Learn how many servings per week are recommended in each food group.
- Eat Less of the Nutrient-Poor Foods: Follow these recommendations to develop an overall healthy eating plan so that the calories you consume provide the nutrients your body needs.
- Eating for Health: How to change your diet to maximize health benefits, such as controlling cholesterol and high blood pressure. (To view video, please click on "Eating for Health." )
- Finding a Balance: Achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is about finding a balance through healthy eating and physical activity.
- Food Labels: Two sources showing you how to use food labels to help you eat food that is low in saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium.
- Healthy Eating: Each month watch a new video demonstrating techniques for cooking healthy and delicious foods. For example, how to use herbs, spices, and seasonings instead of salt.
- Healthy Eating Community Site: Blog posts, discussion boards, news, images, and videos on healthy eating.
- Interactive Nutrition Quiz: 6-question quiz to help you separate nutrition fact from fiction.
- Many Paths to Successful Weight Loss: Compares the benefits of low-fat, low-carb, and Mediterranean diets.
- mypyramid.gov: MyPyramid replaces the old Food Guide Pyramid; it incorporates recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans,2005, and offers personalized eating plans, interactive tools to help users plan food choices, and advice on how to balance food and physical activity.
- Nutrition Fundamentals: Nutrition basics you should know about eating healthy amounts and types of carbohydrates, proteins, fats, and vitamins.
- USDA Nutrient Database: Provides detailed nutrient analysis for over 7,200 foods.
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Portions
- Analyze My Plate is an interactive tool from the CDC based on the balanced plate concept.
- Download this Serving Size Card to remind you what standard food serving sizes look like.
- Just Enough for You- About Food Portions: How can you control the portions you are eating to make sure that you are not eating more than you intended or more than you need for a healthy weight? Learn how to gauge portions when eating at home and eating out, and what a food label means when it gives the number of calories in a "serving size."
- Portion Distortion Quiz: Interactive Web site with two quizzes to compare portion sizes now and 20 years ago.
- The New American Plate: Gives a graphic representation of a healthy portion and plate of food, and invites comparison to people’s current proportion of foods and portion sizes on their own plates. Sample menus and recipes are also included.
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Protein
- Beans and other Legumes: Types and Cooking Tips: Legumes — a class of vegetables that includes beans, peas and lentils — are among the most versatile and nutritious foods available. Legumes are typically low in fat, contain no cholesterol, and are high in folate, potassium, iron and magnesium. They're also a good source of protein and can be a healthy substitute for meat, which has more fat and cholesterol.
- How Much Protein Do You Need?: The idea of eating more protein has gained popularity in the past few years. Some people may think the way to build body muscle is to eat high-protein diets and use protein powders, supplements and shakes.
- Protein: Moving Closer to Center Stage: Pay attention when selecting proteins. Fish, poultry, nuts, and beans are the best choices.
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Other
- Alcohol and Blood Pressure: How alcohol raises your blood pressure and what is considered a safe level of alcohol consumption.
- Alcohol: Balancing Risks and Benefits: Moderate drinking can be healthy—but not for everyone. You must weigh the benefits and risks.
- Alcohol, Wine, and Cardiovascular Disease: The American Heart Association's recommendations for how much alcohol is a heart-healthy amount to drink, and whether red wine has a specific effect on heart disease risk.
- Barley: A Healthy Heart Solution: This grain makes an excellent choice as the starring ingredient in main courses, side dishes, breakfast fare and more. In addition to its versatility, barley is a nutritious food that’s high in fiber and low in fat.
- Flavor That Food: How to use spices and herbs instead of salt to flavor your food.
- Get Smart About Salt: You can reduce your risk of high blood pressure, stroke and heart disease by getting smart about salt. Retrain your taste buds by gradually replacing added salt with herbs and spices. Add health benefits without reducing taste and flavor.
- Health Gains from Whole Grains: includes a list of whole grains and their health benefits.
- Healthy Beverage Guidelines: The Harvard School of Public Health discusses which beverages are best to drink, and how sugary drinks and sugar-substitute drinks affect weight gain or loss.
- Healthy Breakfast Tip 2: Recipe ideas for breakfast foods that include high fiber, whole grains, protein, and other essential nutrients for a healthy start to the day. (To view video, please click on "Healthy Breakfast Tip 2.")
- Know How Many Calories You Should Eat: This table shows you how many calories are appropriate for males and females of different ages and different activity levels.
- Nuts and Your Heart- Eating Nuts for Heart Health: Eating nuts helps your heart. Discover how walnuts, almonds, and other nuts help lower your cholesterol when eaten as part of a balanced diet.
- Potassium and High Blood Pressure: A diet that includes natural sources of potassium is important in controlling blood pressure because potassium blunts the effects of sodium. Find out what is the recommended daily intake and what foods are good natural sources of potassium.
- Spanish Language Food and Nutrition Materials: Over 100 educational materials covering a wide variety of basic and therapeutic nutrition and food safety topics. Materials include those developed by New York Online Access to Health.
- The Center for Mindful Eating: Learn about the theory and practice of mindful eating. Mindful eating has the powerful potential to transform people’s relationship to food and eating, to improve overall health, body image, relationships and self-esteem.
- Tips for Reducing Sodium in Your Diet: Ways that you can cut down the salt you consume in foods that you cook as well as in prepared foods that you buy.
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SHOPPING AND COOKING
- A Healthier You - My Shopping List: Make a healthy foods shopping list, based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2005.
- Cook's Corner: Popular ethnic dishes that have been modified by dietitians to reduce fat, sugar and/or sodium content.
- Delicious Decisions: Find heart-healthy recipes for everything from appetizers to desserts. Recipes range from Thai curry catfish to mushroom quesadillas.
- Delicious Heart Healthy Latino Recipes/Platillos latinos sabrosos y saludables: This bilingual (Spanish and English) cookbook contains 23 tested recipes that cut down on fat, cholesterol, and sodium but not on taste. Information on ordering print copies is located on the same web page.
- Eating Healthy Economically: You can take one step at a time to make your diet healthier. Each step you take will make a big difference. Here are some steps to choose from courtesy of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine.
- Healthy Eating Starts with Healthy Food Shopping: The new National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Obesity Guidelines say that you can reduce the time you spend cooking healthy by using a shopping list and keeping a well-stocked kitchen.
- How to Understand and Use the Nutrition Facts Label: Become a smart shopper by reading food labels to make quick, informed food choices that contribute to a healthy diet.
- Farmer's Market Search : Search for farmer’s markets in your area by name, city, country, zip code, or forms of payment accepted.
- Grocery Store Strategies: Helpful tips for healthy shopping.
- Healthy Cooking Community Site: Blog posts, discussion boards, news, images, and videos on healthy cooking including specialized recipes and tips.
- Healthy Cooking Fundamentals: Discover the basics of cooking healthy meals.
- Heart-Healthy Home Cooking African American Style: This recipe book brings together many African American favorite recipes, prepared in a heart-healthy way lower in fat, especially saturated fat, cholesterol, and sodium! It shows how to prepare dishes in ways that help protect you and your family from heart disease and stroke.
- How Can I Cook Healthfully?: Which cooking methods to use to cut down on unhealthy fat, and how to cut fat without losing the taste.
- How Do I Change Recipes?: How you can substitute high-fat, high-salt ingredients for more heart-healthy ingredients and still eat delicious meals.
- How Meat and Poultry Fit in Your Healthy Diet : Knowing how to pick the right cuts of meat and practicing low-fat cooking techniques can cut unnecessary fat from your diet and help you achieve your healthy eating goals.
- Make Healthy Food Choices: A heart-healthy diet is delicious and varied — rich in vegetables and fruits, with whole grains, high-fiber foods, lean meats and poultry, fish at least twice a week, and fat-free or 1 percent fat dairy products.
- Recipe Remix: Find helpful tips to reduce the total fat, saturated fat, calories, and sodium in your favorite recipes.
- Sample Reduced-Calorie Menus: Features traditional-American, Asian-American, Southern, Mexican- American, and lacto-ovo vegetarian 1200 and 1600 calorie menus.
- Shopping for Fruits and Vegetables: Make healthy choices for your family by shopping smart and understanding what goes into the foods you buy.
- Top 10 Healthy Cooking Tips: From the American Heart Association, for people with high blood pressure and their families.
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EATING OUT
- Eating Healthy When Dining Out: The new National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Obesity Guidelines say that whether or not you're trying to lose weight, you can eat healthy when dining out, if you know how. Here are some tips.
- Fast Food Can Be Smart Food: Once fast food meant fried food. But today companies offer healthier alternatives. Still, limit the number of times a week you “drive thru” and choose wisely when you do.
- Fast Food Tips: Fast foods are quick, low cost, and easy substitutes for home cooking. They fit well into our busy lifestyles, but fast foods are almost always high in calories, fat, sugar, and salt. Knowing the amount of calories, fat, and salt in fast foods can help you make healthier choices.
- Healthy Dining Finder allows you to look at nutrition facts for restaurants in your area.
- Healthy Fast Food- Tips for Making Healthier Fast Food Choices: Yes – it is possible! Eating just one fast food meal can pack enough calories, sodium and fat for an entire day, but the quick-and-cheap temptation can be hard to resist. The good news is that by making yourself knowledgeable and choosing carefully at chain restaurants you can maintain your healthy diet goals when eating out!
- Tips for Eating Fast Food: Fast food used to mean fried food, but today food franchises are offering people more healthy alternatives. Chef salads, grilled chicken sandwiches, and frozen yogurt are just three examples.
- Tips for Eating Healthy When Eating Out: Helpful dining tips when eating out from the United States Department of Agriculture.
- Tips for Eating Out: How to eat low-fat, heart-healthy meals in 15 types of restaurants, from fast food and family restaurants to Italian and Vietnamese.
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