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Most of us know the feeling of hankering for a little bite of something to get us through between meals. But if you have high cholesterol and high blood pressure, then knowing the right snack to reach for when you’re feeling peckish is particularly important for your health.
We asked Alex Gyftopoulos, MD, a cardiologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center, in Baltimore, the best snack choice for those with high cholesterol and blood pressure.
*This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Q: If someone has high cholesterol and blood pressure, then what is the best snack choice for them?
Gyftopoulos: I’m a fan of low-fat Greek yogurt with berries or another fruit on top. Fruit and veggies are always a good choice, even if they’re frozen. If they’re canned, that’s fine, too, as long as they don’t have added sugar.
What we’re looking for is foods that are high in fiber and low in salt, fat, and sugar. If we can get some protein in there, that’s great too.1 In this case, we have fiber from the fruit and protein from the yogurt.
Q: Why is fiber so important?
Gyftopoulos: After you eat fiber, it binds to the bile acids that you use to digest food, which are made out of cholesterol. Normally the body would reabsorb these acids, but if fiber binds to them, it can’t reabsorb them and they pass through your digestive system instead.2 Then your body is forced to make more. To do that, it has to remove cholesterol from the bloodstream.3 So that’s one of the reasons why fiber is so beneficial.
Q: What about protein?
Gyftopoulos: It’s great to have because it helps you feel fuller for longer.4 It keeps you from snacking on other things and helps you control cravings, so you can have a single healthy snack with some protein and feel satisfied.
Q: What are some other good snack options?
Gyftopoulos: Air-popped popcorn without butter is a good choice. Many people don’t know that there’s actually a decent amount of fiber in popcorn, and it’s pretty easy to make on your own rather than buying the prepackaged stuff.
Another great example is mixed nuts that aren’t heavily salted. That can fill you up for a long period of time because nuts contain both protein and fiber.
Q: What snacks should you stay away from if you have high cholesterol and blood pressure?
Gyftopoulos: You should stay away from anything that is heavily processed and packaged. Potato chips, for example, tend to have a lot of added fats and salts. A lot of the processed snacks that come in bags, like cookies and crackers, are heavily processed, with refined carbohydrates that just raise blood sugar, and don’t do the good things we want to reduce cholesterol and blood pressure.
Q: How do the nutritious snacks you mentioned fit into an overall healthy dietary pattern?
Gyftopoulos: I like to tell my patients, “We’re looking at big principles and patterns—we’re not going to beat ourselves up over small missteps.”
Focus on a vegetable-forward dietary pattern, incorporating plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables when we can, but frozen and canned will do the trick too. Lean meats and proteins are what we want to go for, as well as plant-based proteins. That applies to our meals and anything we eat in between meals.