Patient was educated on measures to be considered for compliance with heart healthy diet recommendation as follows:
- Choose soups made of lean meat and fresh vegetables. Try using low fat alternatives versus heavy cream, while making soups. Prepare all your soups a day ahead before consumption. Refrigerating them overnight and removing any extra fat that floats to the top the following morning, can help reduce consumption of unhealthy fats.
- Significant portion of our daily salt/sodium intake is naturally present in the various foods we eat and is pre-mixed in preparation products, such as, sauces, ketchup, and curry powders we use for cooking. A minor portion of the sodium consumption comes from the extra salt we add to our food during cooking. Choosing food items low on salt and avoiding adding extra salt during cooking can help improve compliance with heart healthy diet recommendation. Avoid adding salt on the dinner table. Discarding the saltshaker can help avoid adding any extra salt on the dinner table.
- Salt can act as a preservative, increase the shelf life of food items significantly, and so, is liberally added to many frozen meals and canned foods. Always choosing to have freshly prepared meals over frozen can help with reduced salt consumption.
- Avoid all canned vegetables due to their high added salt content. Choose to have your vegetables freshly cut and soups freshly made, to avoid loading yourself with extra salt from canned foods. Even while choosing to pick canned vegetables from the aisle, pick the products with the label, reduced or low sodium.
