Heart healthy eating

I was going to post this under the Cheese Steak thread, but decided that it would take it too far afield and I didn't want to hijack the thread. It's much better as a stand alone thread since it can be so much more here.

I am somewhat of a student of heart healthy eating now, but am far from being an expert. But I know how to add flavor to food w/o adding sodium and fat, but I'm still learning. Nutrition labels have become my friend and it can take very long to even pick out a can of "no sodium added" tuna due to label reading (I just buy it from Amazon now; so much easier and "free" delivery). I've been through it, as have others, and I hope this thread can be a place where we can share findings, recipes, ask questions, etc. There's no need to go it alone and we can share info'. Maybe it will even allow others to escape grief. That's my hope.

I understand what some are saying about diet/getting older, etc. A year and a half ago my doc said, "So, do I prescribe meds to try and get your BP, cholesterol, and sugar under control? Or, do you want to wait until after your 1st heart attack?" What a slap of reality! So, no, I don't eat like this all of the time.(anymore)

That's what did it for me Rob (heart attack). My LDL/HDL was acceptable but what I didn't know was that heart disease is part of my genetic makeup. When that's in the mix just throw out everything known and get the LDL as low as possible and the HDL as high as possible. Thank GOD that my heart attack was so mild. I was told after the bypass that 60-65 is how well an undamaged heart pumps and mine measured at 60. It pays to pay attention to ones body. I could have easily ignored my symptoms. Today my PCP tells me that there are people who would kill to have my LDL/HDL numbers. It would have been so much easier to do it w/o the ambulance(s) and the surgery. But would I have listened? I was very fortunate that one of the best heart hospitals in the nation is in Portland, Maine and there was never any question, from anyone, that that's where I was going.

Today I have completely revamped the way I eat and cook. Foods that I once had frequently I have once a month as a treat; pizza is in that category. Marbled meat is totally not going to happen. I haven't had a ribeye since what seems to be forever. I try to keep any consumed sat' fat and cholesterol as low as possible as well as sodium. There are days when I have to eat a few potato chips to get my sodium up to at least 200mg. Look at nutrition labels to understand just how difficult that is to do today (low sodium eating). I used to consume 3000-4000mg of salt daily. Basically, if something tastes good and I didn't cook it I can't swallow it and need to spit it out. If I happen to consume something with sodium in it I know it because I am consumed by thirst shortly after and for subsequent hours. But my taste buds pretty much inform me of sodium being present now.

Genetics...there's something to it. I had my heart attack and bypass surgery in early June; an older brother had his the month after and the eldest brother the month after that. If we had only known maybe we could have gotten a group rate.

Treats... I leached out the sodium from a few 97% lean ham steaks earlier this week and replaced the sodium with liquid smoke to put flavor back into the ham. Tomorrow I'll cook up some of that ham and have my 2 eggs for the week. In years past I would just cook the ham steaks and have eggs whenever I wanted; most every day. I love eggs and still do. The prevention is so much easier than the solution afterward. But there are folks who ignore the Drs even after the surgery and that puts a 10-12 year life to the surgery. Changing the lifestyle makes the surgery last soooo much longer. One person in cardiac rehab' limits his intake of ribeyes to one per week. I'm not that person and don't suggest anyone be that person. He needs recipes for his wife, at his request, and I intend to bring him recipes that he can also consume.

I'm still learning, but my vascular surgeon has told me that "I should probably hire you as a motivational speaker.". I would be terrible at it so there's no chance that I'll let that happen. My cardiac rehab nurses have suggested that they use me as the poster child for cardiac rehab. Cardiac rehab is more personal and that I can do. I still have problems associated with cardiac and I'm working on them (claudications, just google it). The therapy involves pain and most folks just won't do it from what I'm told. The alternative is even less desirable IMO so I undergo the pain and have seen huge benefits. I don't want the surgery to correct them.

Totally interested and looking forward to trying some recipes.

Subscribed.

Here's an easy one David.

Hunts makes a no sodium added tomato sauce in a big 28 oz can. I'm betting they also make a 28 oz can of no sodium added diced tomatoes. I can't find it but my supermarket chain has their own. I mix the 2 and add gran' garlic and dry oregano and basil on about a 1:2 ration. Use as much or little as you need for flavor. I bring the mix up to the simmer and taste as I go along. When it's right I add a tiny can (8ozs?) of tomato paste to thicken it. I hate watery sauce since I don't cook the pasta al dente and fiish the pasta off in the sauce.

I put it on Barilla whole wheat spaghetti along with the real deal fresh ground pecorino romano cheese (some things are non-negotiable and romano is one of those things.

OK, so why don't I finish the pasta off in the sauce? Pasta can also be used for Lo Mein. A heart healthy recipe I have yet to work on. But it's a habit for me at this point. I've been known to make breakfast fried rice or breakfast Lo Mein since it's so simple and quick. I need to work on that, but I had my 2 eggs this morning.

Smoked ham... who doesn't like the stuff? The "salt leached 97% fat free version with added smoke" worked fine today, I just need to up the amount of liquid smoke to make up for the lack of sodium. I slow nuked the 1/2 ham steak and waited for it to shrink and give up it's water, it tasted OK with the exception I noted. I think I'm on the right track.

How does one add flavor to salt free beef and chicken? My supermarket has sodium free "bouillon" packets, but Amazon has a much better deal in jars. The stuff actually tastes good and you add the water, or even add it to dry items. Can't add liquid chicken broth to chicken salad, but the dry sodium free version can goose the flavor.

If I post an outlet for items I'm not suggesting anyone buy from there, it's for illustration only.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00473...UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00473...UTF8&psc=1

Chicken breast is fairly tasteless IMO, but browned and braised chicken breast yields stock for other recipes and white meat for chicken salad. Add some homemade mayo, celery (include the tops), onion, parsley, some bouillon, black pepper, and maybe some Mrs Dash or Bells Seasoning and it's pretty tasty with no sodium. I go by taste on everything I make so I give no amounts here.

The same goes for tuna salad. My market has Rain Coast Forest no sodium added albacore. But for $1 less per can for a less contaminated species (Tongol tuna) I buy mine from Amazon. Prime membership is your friend when buying heavy items. The tongol tuna, Crown Prince brand, is a very nice tasting tuna. If someone wants to cut the intake of oil and not use mayo for tuna salad, a mashed up avocado works well. I'm so accustomed to mayo in my tuna salad and I'm not a big fan of avocado, so I stick with my homemade mayo. The avocado version allows the flavor of the tuna to come through loud and clear. I need to try avocado again with the Tongol tuna. Again, mash it up and use it as a binder.

If anyone else has anything, please help me out by posting.

I need to remember to post about Sous Vide. It makes no fat beef worth eating.

It's easier to write about sous vide by just giving some links (OK, one link). Trust me you want this cooking technique since it allows the successful, delicious, juicy, and tender cooking of low fat meats that we can eat.

https://www.amazingfoodmadeeasy.com/

This gent also has excellent information. The information at the link below was all I needed those years ago when I got started. He also gives a very detailed explanation of why it works.

http://www.douglasbaldwin.com/sous-vide.html

And here is the same information in .pdf format.

https://www.hotex.hu/data/upload/file/So...Guide°.pdf

By supplying that link I don't endorse any products, it's there to get one started only.

If one does a 'net search there is all sorts of information available; charts, calculators, whatever.

If anyone has questions, ask, and I'll do my best. I've been doing SV for years now and love the technique for it's simplicity and excellent results (with virtually no work!).

Something we do that I don't know if others do... One can SV 30 or more steaks (we do that frequently), then keeping the steaks in the bags that they were cooked in, freeze them. When a steak is desired just warm it up in the SV bath set to the same temp' as the steak was cooked at. An hour later the steak is ready to be finished off and eaten. By finish off, I mean to put dextrose or dilute corn syrup on and torch it for the maillard reaction to give it grilled flavor. We've had guests rave about the results. Freezing and rewarming a pre-cooked steak results in no loss of quality.

FWIW, I have a Sansaire unit and it works fine and has for years. At the time there were very few affordable SV units available. I wasn't going to spend $1200 for one.

The other day we bought some bottom round roasts since they aren't marbled, all the fat is on the outside and can be trimmed away. Inexpensive cuts work fine, and IMO are best, for sous vide (SV). Marbling upsets the torching, and has never been heart friendly however good it tastes.

Allow me to digress... Cold cut type roast beef from the deli is off limits due to the salt, so if I want any I must make it myself. Now I return you back to the bottom round post in progress.

So after trimming the fat and cutting the 2 roasts into 4 along the "line" that runs through it we got 4 smaller roasts 99% fat free. We put each one into a vac' bag and added some gran' garlic (fresh garlic is a no-no with sous vide), dry basil, dry oregano, and fresh ground black pepper. Then vac' sealed each one. They went into the 129°F SV bath and stayed there for at least 36 hours, more like 38-40 by the time I got to them. But one of the nice things about SV is that max' time isn't critical (as long as it isn't wildly over), only minimum time is critical.

I froze all but one, that one I thin sliced across the grain right away after cooling it down. Delicious and tender and low sodium and low fat, and I didn't even torch it to get the Maillard reaction flavors! The "Italian" flavoring worked fine without torching. I'll definitely do this again, and in fact we have another 3 roasts in the SV bath as I write. These have only gotten g'garlic and b' pepper and are bigger. I'll know more on Sunday after they emerge from the bath. One is small and I'll try to pull it out closer to the 36 hours, I'll probably let the other larger roasts stay in for 4-6 hours additional bath time.

I think SV chicken with the same Italian flavoring will be up very soon. Frankly over the years that I've used SV I mostly did beef and lamb, but that is going to change.

I needed bread so yesterday I made 4 loaves (1 batch). I was still in search of a loaf with long fermentation taste and I think I hit on it. My reasoning went like this... beer is a long fermentation and has good fermentation flavor. So I replaced most of the liquid in the loaves with nothing but beer. Success! Great flavor, and not the "heavy" flavor of whole grain ground wheat. FWIW, I used the fresh ground wheat @ a 50/50 ratio with bread flour. I'll do this again and again. I also added 1/6 "vital wheat gluten" to make a sliced bread that is flexible and holds up to a sandwich, most homemade bread made from whole grain breaks apart when sliced and made into a sandwich. One loaf of the bread is in here, the rest are halved, bagged, and will go into the freezer.

I just sliced the smaller package of heavily trimmed experimental bottom round flavored with granulated garlic and black pepper. It was sous vide for 38(?) hours @ 129°F. Very tasty and as tender as filet mignon. Normally I torch the meat but again I did nothing but allowed it to drain before slicing. I just wanted to taste it as it emerged from the bag and not with a grilled flavor. The 2 bigger roasts are still in the SV bath. Since they are thicker they take a bit longer. I'll probably take them out near 12:00 for an approximate 42 hour cook time.

FWIW, neither the bread or the "roast" beef has any added sodium. The beef has a thin streak of fat running through it, so it's mostly fat free. I need a little animal fat in my diet, we all do. The oil used in the bread was grapeseed oil, and the wheat can't be any fresher since I ground it from the whole grain minutes before turning it into bread dough.

And the folks I wholesale to for Krampert's Finest wonder why there is a shortage of product and they need to wait for shipments. I cook most of my food today because if I don't cook it I can't eat it; too much sodium and sat' fat. It all takes time and dang it(!) I'm retired!

Correction, I can eat food that others cook if they cook it specially for me, but most folks can't eat what I now do, their taste buds demand sodium. My point? We were at a get together a few weeks ago and the host asked if I could eat scallops and how should they be cooked for me? She put together a small dish w/o sodium added and I greatly appreciated that. I picked at the rest of the food that I shouldn't have eaten, but I did anyway. Lots of it was on my "OK to eat" list.

Clearly I figured "get the cooking done today", so after the RB I made a pint of mayo' (no sodium), a batch of Brian's Milk Substitute (a nut milk) and a 3 1/2 pint batch of milk thistle paste that I use medicinally.

You might want to consider canned salmon instead of canned tuna. Less mercury, more omega-3s. Salmon salad made this way can be surprisingly tasty. Salmon is also not in danger of being overfished like tuna.

For oils, besides olive oil, I've taken to using avocado oil, which is also primarily monounsaturated but has a high smoke point (500 degrees) which means you can roast veggies with it at whatever heat you like and not need to worry.

I have used salmon for salad in the past, yup, it's good, but the tongol tuna is also low in contaminants. I just equate the taste of fish salad with tuna. I'm not opposed to salmon salad though.

Thanks too, for the heads up on avocado oil. I'll look for it. Pecan oil is another that I use, but I like it mostly on salads, as well as walnut oil.

ShadowsDad what torch do you use for sous vide?

An Iwatani.

The link below is for illustration purposes only and not a suggestion to buy. You might find better prices elsewhere if you intend to buy one. Too, Iwatani gives all sorts of dire warnings about using other brands of butane, but mine runs fine on much less expensive Korean gas. If you have a propane torch you might give that a try, but I didn't. In my reading on it some folks report tasting the rotten egg smell that is put into propane. I didn't want to invite folks over and test their tastebuds for sulfur dioxide.

https://www.amazon.com/Iwatani-Culinary-...161&sr=8-3