If you have been diagnosed as having high cholesterol, you could possibly be tempted to start hunting out low cholesterol foods to help reduce your levels, the truth is in essence there aren't any. Cholesterol is a waxy fat like substance which is created by the liver, and ultimately its the liver that determines how much of its created, yet it is transported around the body by lipoproteins HDL and LDL, and it can be these that we can effect with the foods that we consume rather than worrying about eating low cholesterol foods.
The first lipoprotein LDL is typically referred to as the bad cholesterol. This carries the cholesterol around the body to do its job that is essential to our health. The next lipoprotein could be the HDL, this is classed as the fine and its function would be to mop up the LDL cholesterol and take it back to the liver for reprocessing. Problems start to occur when you have too much LDL in the blood and not enough HDL to take it back.
So, the first thing we would like to do is eliminate food that creates extra LDL, and there are two of these. The first is food containing saturated fat just like meat and dairy products, if you can cut back on these it will help, on the other hand the one you actually need to cut out is trans fats. Trans fats are a man made fat and it can be created through the process of making vegetable oil solid. This process is called hydrogenating and the hydrogenated fat sometimes turns up in foods for example cookies, pastries, fast foods and ready made meals. These fats can have such a negative effect on your LDL levels that it can be now banned in Denmark and Sweden.
Once you have got rid of the trans fats you also need to be increasing your intake of foods rich in omega 3 fatty acids for example walnuts, flaxseeds and oily fish. The reason being is that the omega 3's, specially the ones from oily fish, help to improve your HDL levels. In addition to that they also help to reduce LDL and triglycerides too. Oily fish is so fine for your heart the American Heart Association recommends having at least two portions of it per week.
There are also supplements on the market that can help balance your cholesterol instead of low cholesterol foods. These type of supplements generally contain about 5 or 6 natural ingredients whose properties boost HDL, lower LDL and any excess LDL that cannot be reprocessed they change into bile salts which have been removed from the body. In fact these supplements often contain properties that are blended into them to make them as useful as statins but without the side effects.
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