Heart Healthy Recipes for February the Heart Healthy Month!
Heart Healthy Meals From No Shoes Nutrition
By Meghan Prescott
Hi Friends!
When you’re deciding what to eat each week, how often does heart health come to mind as you plan your meals? At No Shoes Nutrition, we want to ensure that the way we eat always supports our heart and cardiovascular system for a lifetime of good health. This week we are posting recipes that your heart—and mouth—are sure to love! We want to make sure we are consuming foods that can help lower inflammation, increase circulation, and provide the nutrients our hearts will thrive on. See below for a few of these heart-friendly nutrients, along with recipes!
Omega 3: Omega 3’s are a star nutrient when it comes to lowering inflammation in the body. This means making sure we focus on getting Omega 3’s from foods like wild-caught salmon and mackerel, grass-fed beef, flax seeds, hemp seeds, chia seeds, and walnuts. Our diets in North America are typically out of balance, and we end up getting far more Omega 6 than we need.
Nitric Oxide Boosters: Nitric Oxide isn’t a nutrient, per se, but it’s an important component that our body produces to keep our blood pressure and blood flow working well. Foods with naturally occurring nitrates that support this important part of our cardiovascular health are beets, cauliflower, dark leafy greens like kale, arugula, Swiss chard, and spinach. The potassium and magnesium found in these vegetable rockstars are also extremely important for our hearts!
Antioxidants: Oxidative stress in our bodies puts extra stress on the heart and cardiovascular system and doesn’t allow nitric oxide to work as well as it should. Antioxidant-rich foods like berries, kiwis, strawberries, pineapple, rhubarb, garlic, and colourful veggies like bell peppers and tomatoes, sweet potatoes, and broccoli, as well as sunflower seeds and almonds, are all excellent sources of antioxidants, which can help to reduce oxidative stress.
These are just some of the heart-healthy nutrients we need in our diets, but they're a great starting point! Other important lifestyle habits that contribute to heart health are exercise, good sleep, hydration, stress reduction, reducing abdominal weight, and limiting refined foods, sugar, and seed oils. All of these healthy habits will support your heart and keep it happy for years to come! We hope you enjoy the recipes we’ve included this week!
Here are some recipes that we would love to share with you this week to give you some new ideas in the kitchen AND support your heart health!
Yummy Salmon Cakes for the omega-3’s and protein to balance blood sugar. These cakes are great for any meal of the day and even work fantastic for a quick snack. Another favorite are Pressure Cooker Stuffed Peppers they don’t take long to make and have everything needed for a balanced meal that will support your heart health. These are just two examples of great recipes that No Shoes Nutrition can support you with.
Do you want to know more? Are you worried about your cardiovascular health? Would you like to know more about how you can begin to get to the root issues holding you back from reaching your health and wellness goals? Let’s chat about how holistic nutrition consulting and health coaching can help you make your own healthy changes so that you can feel your best every single day. We can provide recipes, meal and snack ideas, and support changes to transform your health! Schedule an initial complimentary consultation with us today—or pass this offer on to someone you care about! Visit www.noshoesnutrition.com and sign up for a complimentary consultation. We work with individuals from all over the world, either individually or in groups, so don’t let anything hold you back!
