Fruits and Vegetables for Heart Health: How to Protect Your Heart Naturally

You need to care for your heart like the heart cares for you. If your heart stops, your life stops, therefore, you should be very careful about what you put inside your body. Heart diseases are one of the primary causes of human death worldwide. If you do not take care of your heart, you might die prematurely.

How to Improve Health Health

Generally speaking, there are three ways to keep your heart healthy

• Regular exercise

• Avoid smoking and drinking, and eating fatty foods and red meat

• Eat foods that promote heart health

Exercise will not only lower your blood sugar, cholesterol levels, and obesity but also improve your circulatory system, thus improving your heart health. Smoking and drinking are bad for your heart health, so are fatty foods and red meat.

There are foods that lower your cholesterol levels, blood pressure and keep your heart healthy. Try including fruits and vegetables that contain vitamins and minerals that ate good for your heart.

Fruits to Eat For Healthy Heart

Try eating these fruits for a healthy heart.

Blueberries: Blueberries have plenty of fibers, fiber-rich foods are good for the heart. Blueberries lower the risk of heart disease by lowering your lipids.

Pomegranates: Eat pomegranates or drink pomegranate juice if you are experiencing low blood pressure.

Cherries: Cherries are good fruits to eat if you want to keep your blood pressure under control. Cherries improve the circulatory system and keep the cardiovascular system in check.

Apple: Apple increases good cholesterol and lowers bad cholesterol.

Health Benefits of Cucumber

Cucumber has a Glycemic Index of 15, which means it is low in sugar, thus, very safe for diabetic patients. Research has even proved that eating cucumber regularly even lowers your blood sugar substantially. If you want to maintain heart health, you need to avoid diabetes in any case.

Normally, 100 grams of cucumber have 4-gram carbohydrates, thus, cucumber is considered a low-calorie food that can be eaten by those who want to cut weight.

In 100 grams of cucumber, there are less than 1 gram of fats, which means cucumber is very good for people who have fatty liver, cholesterol, or hypertension.

Cucumbers are rich in potassium and magnesium. These minerals help in regularizing blood pressure.

Cucumbers have electrolyte content that controls the heart rate by minimizing sodium from your bloodstream.

Cucumber has a lot of phytonutrients that have anti-inflammatory properties. You can eat a lot of cucumbers to manage pain.

Apart from the aforementioned health benefits, you can eat cucumber to get rid of bad breath (because compounds in cucumber kill bacteria). If you are experiencing dehydration, you can eat a lot of cucumbers. If you are experiencing constipation, you can earn cucumbers because cucumber has a lot of fiber content that helps in easing your bowel movement.  

The best way to eat cucumber is to dip cucumber in chorine water or saltwater for 20 minutes, wash it thoroughly and eat raw. Interestingly, if you pickle it, you will get additional benefits

Why You Should Eat More Tomatoes

Tomato is a vegetable but it is also categorized as a fruit. There is an interesting anecdote that explains why tomato is a fruit. A long time ago, the US government imposed a heavy tax on vegetable farmers, in order to save money on tax, the farmers said tomato was not a vegetable but a fruit. That’s how tomatoes became fruits.

Tomatoes can be eaten raw, steamed, or cooked. Tomatoes are a very important part of soups, salad, broths, and gravy dishes.

Tomatoes are loaded with a lot of potassium. One cup serving of uncooked tomatoes contains just about 237 mg of potassium. You need a lot of potassium for your heart health as potassium balances your heartbeat, and improves the circulatory system and cardiovascular health.  If you are eating one cup of tomatoes, you are getting your daily dose of potassium.

Tomatoes contain vitamin A, Vitamin A is necessary for eye health, it improves eyesight. Tomatoes also have various B vitamins, which are good for improving your cognitive functions.

However, tomatoes also have a lot of side effects. If you are eating a lot of tomatoes, you will be prone to kidney stones. Eating a lot of tomatoes might also cause body pain. Therefore, if you have arthritic symptoms or any kind of inflammatory symptoms, avoid eating too much tomato.

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