What you put on your plate is one of the biggest factors in how healthy your heart is. Here’s what to eat to tune up your ticker.
The fact that diet impacts heart health isn’t news – the link between consuming too much saturated fat and the buildup of fatty plaques on artery walls that can cause a heart attack or stroke is well known. But what you might not be familiar with is how much of an impact what you eat can have on improving your heart health. According to Australia’s Heart Foundation, simply eating at least five serves of vegetables a day can reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease by almost 17 per cent. And there’s research conducted at Australia’s Deakin University which shows how eating a heart healthy diet can substantially reduce the risk of heart attack, even for people who have genes that mean they’re more likely to develop heart disease. The diet that has the biggest impact on improving heart health is a Mediterranean-style diet. It makes sense when you consider that in countries where that eating pattern is traditional, heart disease is roughly half as common as in places where a Western-style diet is standard. And while it could be argued there might be additional protective lifestyle factors at play in those countries, research backs up the fact that there’s a direct link between the Mediterranean diet and protection against heart disease. One example is a review by University of Sydney researchers. The results, published in 2023, suggest that women eating a Mediterranean diet have a 24 per cent lower risk of heart disease.
For your heart’s sake, it’s never too late to start eating that way. Research involving more than 120,000 women and conducted over a 15-year period, discovered that heart disease risk dropped substantially among women who started eating a Mediterranean-style diet post menopause. So why is the Mediterranean diet so good for heart health? For starters, it prioritises nutrient-rich whole-ingredient foods over heavily processed ones, so it naturally provides sufficient fibre and plenty of heart-healthy vitamins and minerals. It’s also rich in unsaturated fats, including omega-3 fats, which can slow the buildup of those fatty plaques in the arteries. A Mediterranean-style diet can also have a positive impact on the bacteria that live in your gut, and good gut health has a role to play in lowering heart-disease risk too.
How to give your diet a Mediterranean makeover
You’ve probably heard at least something about the Mediterranean diet. It’s all about basing meals around plant-based foods like fruit and veg, whole grains, legumes, nuts and herbs and spices, while eating fish and seafood a couple of times a week, and dairy, eggs and poultry in moderation. Olive oil is typically the main source of added fat, and red meat is traditionally eaten only occasionally or in small quantities. Sounds great in theory but if you’re wondering how to make your everyday meals more Mediterranean – and do it seven days a week –great question! Luckily, it doesn’t have to mean changing your diet completely or spending excessive amounts of time meal planning. With a few smart swaps and shopping choices, eating a Med-style diet can be simpler than you might think, starting with the following tips and tricks.
1. SQUEEZE SOME LEGUMES INTO EACH DAY
Eating lentils, beans or chickpeas daily is one of the non-negotiables. But, while Australians and New Zealanders eat legumes, it’s typically only a few times a week. Bulk out a bolognese or chilli with kidney beans, throw some cooked lentils or raw mung bean sprouts into a salad, snack on edamame or hummus, and try tasty chickpea curry.
2. MAKE VEGIE SOUP OR SALAD YOUR GO-TO FOR LUNCH
A Mediterranean-style diet calls for eating at least five serves of vegetables a day. A sure-fire yet simple way to bump up your intake is by making a habit of ensuring lunch is always a vegetable-rich meal, remembering that a serve is one cup of raw salad or half a cup of cooked vegetables. And don’t forget to take the opportunity to add some legumes to that soup or salad – half a cup of them also counts as a serve of vegetables.
3. SNACK ON NUTS
They’re a key part of the Mediterranean diet, yet only two per cent of Australians are eating the recommended 30g of nuts a day. That’s basically a small handful but, more precisely, it’s 20 almonds or hazelnuts, 15 cashews or macadamias, or 10 Brazil nuts or whole walnuts.
4. REPLACE PROCESSED WITH WHOLE GRAINS
According to Australia’s Grains & Legumes Nutrition Council, three quarters of us aren’t eating enough whole grains. But it‘s easy to simply replace white, highly-processed grains with whole grains – use brown rice instead of white, wholemeal flour and pasta instead of white flour and pasta and eat seedy wholegrain breads.
5. ADD TINNED FISH TO YOUR MEALS TWO OR THREE DAYS A WEEK
It’s an affordable way to eat more of the heart-healthy marine-based omega-3 fatty acids which Mediterranean diets are rich in. A good goal to aim for is at least 300g of fish– and particularly oily fish like canned sardines, canned salmon and some varieties of canned tuna – each week. Not a fan? A 2022 study shows plant-based omega 3s can help to reduce the risk of heart disease for people who don’t eat seafood. Rich food sources include walnuts, flaxseeds, hemp seeds, chia seeds and seaweed, nori and spirulina.
6. EAT AN EGG FOR BREAKFAST EVERY OTHER DAY
The Med diet recommends eggs a few times a week, and a new study shows that people who do so enjoy a 29 per cent lower risk of heart disease-related death. Eggs provide essential nutrients including unsaturated fatty acids, fat-soluble vitamins and numerous minerals, and research suggests for heart health up to six a week is a good target to aim for.
7. ONLY USE OLIVE OIL
While Mediterranean diets can vary depending on which Mediterranean country they hail from, they always share one thing in common – the use of olive oil as the main source of fat. And as a rich source of monounsaturated fat, which can help to lower cholesterol levels when it replaces saturated fat in the diet, it’s a key reason why this eating pattern is so heart healthy. You can use olive oil for everything from pan-frying to making salad dressings and even as a substitute for butter when you’re baking.
8. TRY TO EAT ONE AVOCADO EVERY WEEK
When people did that as part of a 2022 study, they had a 21 per cent lower risk of developing heart disease, compared with people whose diets were avocado free. One explanation is that, like olive oil, avocados are also high in monounsaturated fat.
9. CHOOSE LEAN RED MEAT WHEN YOU EAT IT
A 2021 study suggests that even when a Mediterranean-style diet includes a small portion of lean red meat each day, it still lowers key heart-disease risk factors, such as levels of LDL, or ‘bad’, cholesterol. When you do eat red meat, which includes beef, lamb and pork, stick to serves that are under 70g of cooked meat and choose lean or extra-lean cuts, such as mince, with no more than seven per cent fat. This is also in line with Cancer Council recommendations around red meat consumption to help reduce the risk of bowel cancer.
10. COVER HALF YOUR DINNER PLATE WITH AT LEAST THREE DIFFERENT VEGETABLES
It’s a research-backed way to increase your vegetable intake. And to kick things up a notch, you could even try to make your three dinner vegetables as different as possible night to night, bearing in mind that for good gut health – which in turn supports heart health– striving to eat 30 different plant foods each week is beneficial.
Food isn’t the only factor
It pays to remember that the heart-health benefits associated with the Mediterranean diet aren’t purely down to the food that gets put on the plate – it’s also about some key lifestyle factors. Research shows how enjoying all that nourishing and nutrient-rich food with others in a pleasant, familiar environment makes a big difference, too. Produce is also typically locally grown and eaten shortly after harvesting. So as often as you can, enjoy some distraction-free company while you eat and consider shopping at a local farmers’ market. You’ll find your closest one at farmers markets. org.au in Australia and farmersmarkets.org.nz in New Zealand.
Think your risk of heart disease is fairly low?
Not only is heart disease the leading cause of death in New Zealand, almost every adult in Australia is living with at least one risk factor for it. One third have a combination of two heart-disease risk factors and 57 per cent have three or more. One of the leading risk factors? It’s an unhealthy diet, and the fact is, 90 per cent of us aren’t eating enough vegetables and only 20 per cent of us are getting sufficient marine-based omega-3s from our diets. Perhaps there’s never been a better time to make your meals more Mediterranean?
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