Low carb meals (to lower cholesterol)

[Wishimaywishimight]

I have been advised to cut back (not out) carbs and sugar as my cholesterol is apparently "borderline".

The sugar part is easy enough in the sense I know what I need to reduce - cake, chocolate etc.

With regard to carbs, I am struggling a bit with meals. Last night for dinner I had salmon, carrots and spinach. While it was tasty, I was absolutely starving when I woke this morning. Generally I have either potatoes, rice, pasta or noodles along side that type of dinner and I really missed that element.

Lunch is fine, I am happy enough with tuna salad, that sort of thing but I am at a bit of a loss with regard to dinners.

Any suggestions?

Konjac noodles and pasta are great for recreating those sorts of meals if you’ve previously been used to eating them a lot. Butternut squash (squash generally) makes great wedges and mash to replace potato. Up your quantities of protein as well, to keep you fuller for longer.

Waking up hungry isn’t necessarily a bad thing - it’s a sign of healthy digestion and blood sugar levels.

I just serve a big load of veg instead of potatoes, pasta etc. You can do a tray of roasted veg with a bit of feta thrown in. Sometimes I make celeriac chips or do a cauliflower cheese. Also cauliflower rice with chilli or curry.

If you reduce the cakes and biscuits, you have naturally done a big carb reduction.

I use a lot of celeriac, cauliflower, sweet potato, cannelini bean mash.

Or change the meals so they aren't the sort of thing that needs carbs with it.

You need to fill yourself with fat. Last night's dinner should have a nice fat element to it like creamed spinach with full fat cream or a rich sauce with the salmon.

When you take out the carbs, you need to replace them with fat so that you're not hunger. Eating fat doesn't raise your cholesterol IF you are low carb.

carbs are fine as long as you keep to complex carbs (whole grain) and to moderate amounts.

treat them as part of the meal but not the main event.

think those 3 parts toddler plates.
one small compartment for the protein part, the other small compartment for complex carbs, the big compartment for veg or salad.

My DH was given different advice reducing his cholesterol, but maybe there are different types? I’m no expert! With regards to carbs, he was told to cut back on biscuits, chocolate, crisps, cake and pastry, but oats, rice and potatoes (boiled or baked) were absolutely fine. The other things he had to really reduce were eggs, cheese and red meat.

No they're not, not for everyone. I cannot eat whole grains and my patients (diabetics, heart disease, autoimmune etc.) cannot either.

That's pretty bad advice.

Anyone with a basic understanding of biochemistry and human metabolism knows that cholesterol is a self regulating system. The body produces it and so if you cut cholesterol from your diet, your liver just makes more of it and vice versa. Dietary cholesterol has no impact on the cholesterol in your blood. Carbs do.

And yes, I am a qualified healthcare provider and yes I can back up my claims - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1479303/

@Wishimaywishimight if you're cutting down on carbs, then you need to up your fat intake.

You might also find this piece about cholesterol interesting.

For last night's dinner, I think I'd have just had more salmon. But when I ate low (not no) carb, I used to have things like spaghetti with my normal sauce but with less pasta and some spiralised courgette mixed in to add bulk - maybe 2/3 pasta and 1/3 courgette. Or oatcakes/crackers instead of bread with cheese, as you tend to eat less of them overall.

EVery ten years or so my weight gets away from me. I have found that when I start to cut out all the shite (and I know that I personally don’t do well on starchy carbs so that is the first to go, along with sugar) I feel hungry in the morning. For me they are a bit like sugar (and I mean processed sugar - I never cut back on whole fruit) - they’re addictive, my hunger pangs are a bit like withdrawal. But I push through and soon get used to that and I stop feeling like I’m hungry the next morning.

I do try and make sure I have plenty of natural fatty things with meals - cheese, nuts, avocado etc. I usually eat meat so depending on what type there will be fat there as well which helps to keep you feeling full. I love adding cauliflower as a pretend starch as well.

More protein and healthy fats. If I was just having salmon and veg, I'd probably have two standard size salmon fillets along with as much veg as I wanted to fill me up. Or add in half an avocado. Or a portion of sweet potato chips or cauliflower mash (roasted first, then mashed with butter and a bit of cream).

It's good to see doctors changing their guidance on cholesterol. My family traditionally has high cholesterol (but not the genetic form) and my dad spent his whole life cutting out protein and fat and never seeing any benefit to cholesterol. Literally in our house we ate like rabbits when I was a child trying to avoid meat and any sort of fat. As an adult, the worst my cholesterol ever was was during the many years I was a vegetarian. The best was when I was eating a paleo style diet. You may find looking at paleo or keto style recipes helpful to give you an idea. Also, don't feel you absolutely need to cut out all carbs - just choose wisely when you do decide to eat them, short grain brown rice instead of basmati, rye bread instead of white, porridge instead of a pastry, etc.

Brown carbs aren't necessarily better than white ones, if you need to be low carb.

e.g. Tilda's white basmati rice is 28.2g carbs per 100g, and their wholegrain basmati rice is 23.3g.

That's still a big reduction in carb and a good addition of fibre though.

That isn't a big reduction. And you can (should) get plenty of fibre from eating plenty of vegetables, salad and some fruit.

A 125g portion of wholegrain basmati (portion size as recommended by Tilda) will be 29.1g carbs, compared with 35.2g for a portion of white basmati. That's still a hefty amount of carbohydrate in one meal, if you're trying to low carb.

In light of what’s been said in this thread, I don’t understand why the NHS is advising people to eat less cheese and more rice and whole grains carbs:

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/high-cholesterol/how-to-lower-your-cholesterol/

Masterclass on cholesterol if anyone is interested, but summary is the body make 80% or cholesterol that we need, so cutting back on dietary sources makes little sense. Also some studies have linked lower circulating cholesterol to worse health outcomes.

I have high cholesterol and was seen at a specialist hospital lipid clinic. The advice re diet was to reduce red meat, dairy, unhealthy fats, biscuits, cakes etc. Nothing about carbs. I was already vegan and there was not a single thing on the diet sheet that I was able to change.

@ComtesseDeSpair I have never heard of Konjac noodles and pasta!! Will look out for them (I'm in Ireland so hopefully we have them here).

@Cazzovuoi Thank you so much - your information is fantastically helpful. Low carb without worrying too much about fat content is indeed a great help.

@BIWI Thank you for that article - I have saved it to read properly however what I am taking from that is that dairy is good which is really important to me as I have osteoporosis and my doctor is very firm that I need to NOT reduce dairy / calcium! Although I don't eat an awful lot of red meat (I just prefer chicken / fish), it's good to know I can enjoy it from time to time without worrying.

@mindutopia To be honest I never considered the glaringly obvious 'just have another piece of fish' option! Which would suit me fine as I love fish and chicken.

What my doctor actually said was "whatever you are eating now (in terms of carbs and sugar) cut it in half". In relation to sugar, I aim to do better than that as I know the cakes / chocolate etc that I eat are actually more enjoyable as a weekly (ish) treat rather than every day as I had been doing.

Thanks so much to everyone who has replied. All advice received is useful and adding to my (currently small!) body of knowledge. I will do more reading but, in the meantime, I do feel a little more knowledgeable about what I need to be eating and how to go about it.

@Wishimaywishimight not sure if they're in Ireland, but here they're also marketed as Bare Naked Noodles

If you have an Asian supermarket anywhere near you, you might be able to buy them. They're a Japanese noodle called shirataki.

@BIWI Thanks so much. I see that Tesco do the Bare Naked Noodles and actually there is an Asian supermarket very near to me so I will have a look for the Japanese noodles.

I watch recipes on social media and sometimes people eat a 50/50 combination of cauliflower rice and rice as the side to their meal which I thought was a good idea.

@BoohooWoohoo I have never actually tried cauliflower rice but I love cauliflower so I may well be happy with just a portion of that!

@Wishimaywishimight do you want to lose weight as well? If not, you might have to have the cauli rice or similar for the feel of having a pretend carby side dish, but still also have the second piece of fish.

@BarnacleBeasley I wouldn't mind dropping 5 or 6lbs but that's about all as I am a healthy weight. If I lose those few pounds I will then increase my protein a little.