DH high cholesterol - diet advice please

[MrsAvocet]

My DH (mid 50s) has been recently told he has high cholesterol. He's been told to lose weight (which he definitely needs to) and "improve his diet". If it doesn't improve he'll be put on a statin.
I'm at a bit of a loss on the "improve diet" thing though, and he wasn't given any practical advice on what was actually needed. I think the GP was assuming that he lives on kebabs and deep fried sausage rolls or something, but we honestly don't. We've got a DS with multiple allergies so I cook most things from scratch and I would have said we had a pretty healthy diet, though DH does have a habit of snacking a lot, especially when bored or stressed which I think is at the root if his weight problem.
He definitely needs to cut out the chocolate and biscuits in between meals but I am at a bit of a loss about improving family meals. We do use real butter which I've replaced with the Flora cholesterol lowering stuff, but we're talking a couple of slices of toast a day worth of butter so I can't see that making a radical difference.
We do eat too much meat, which I've been trying to reduce anyway but it's a bit tricky as DS is allergic to a lot of vegetarian protein sources, but I'll do what I can to make more meat free meals.
I've searched for low cholesterol recipes online and they really aren't that different to what I'd normally cook. DH's family are from a Mediterranean country so I cook quite a few recipes from there which I thought were supposed to be good for the heart anyway.
We have a takeaway or eat out maybe once a month so could cut that out but I'm reluctant to completely ban takeaways as it's something the kids enjoy once in a while.
So I'm a bit stumped. I have to admit I am a bit offended as the inference from the GP was it's all diet related, and as I do the vast majority of the cooking that makes it my fault. But I am also a bit worried that if I can't make major changes to our diet he should go on the medication straight away rather than wasting time tinkering with minor diet changes.
Sorry, I've gone on a bit, but any advice or good recipe ideas would be welcomed. Thanks in advance.

The cheese and crackers are the worst thing to snack on for either weight or cholesterol.
100g of cheddar is 400 calories.
That's like another whole lunch.
Weigh out how much cheese he eats per night and work out the calories.

@quinin

A whole food planet based diet will reverse that as plants do not contain cholesterol. It's meat, eggs, fats that are the cause. If you cut out these foods, cholesterol drops. Most illness is lifestyle rather than genetics, despite what we are told we do have the power to control our health without medication.

Seems like a big deal to change diets but it's surprisingly how good you feel and how easy it is to get used to. I had changed my diet after a serious illness and was amazed at how great I felt.

Have you watched 'how not to die'? It's on YouTube & Netflix think.

So will eating a diet containing meat, fish, eggs and dairy products as well as vegetables - if he cuts out the sneaky chocolates and all the biscuits and pastries that are making up a significant part of his energy intake in the day when the OP is busy cooking healthy foods.

Also get him to log all his food on weightlossresources .co.uk
I've just started using it and already lost 4lb

Hard to say as he does most of the shopping but there's usually about 3 different types open in the fridge at a time (is a pack about 250g?) and I'd say they get replaced about every week-10 days. But my other son also likes cheese and he also feeds it to his chickens so DH can't take all the blame for that, but yes, I would say he eats too much of it.
Soup usually vegetarian unless i use a chicken carcass, but come to think of it DH does quite often throw some chorizo or ham in his which is added saturated fat.
Yes, I do (did!) put butter on toast but have swapped that now.
Meat - no, DH and the boys all have around the same and I have half so they'll have 140g or so, msybe 150g and I'll have the remaining 50 -70g. They are both a healthy weight and eat more or less the same as their Dad at mealtimes, though they are more active and the younger one is still growing which obviously makes a difference.
I'm perfectly prepared to try - that was the whole point of the thread after all.

Don’t necessarily attach any blame to yourselves for the cholesterol level - genetics are key
The body and liver makes cholesterol, out-with our control, I am given to understand.
Overnight oats (soaked in the fridge) are another easy alternative to porridge.

I agree with you to a point @ICouldHaveCheckedFirst in that I can't control what he buys for himself and eats and if he doesn't want to change I can't make him. But I have health issues of my own and cooking is one of the few things that I can do at present. I am doing very little else as largely housebound awaiting surgery at the moment so it would be pretty shoddy of me not to be willing to spend a few hours reading about cholesterol when DH is working full time and looking after me. (Plus I have a vested interest in keeping him alive!)

I wouldn't panic about diet just yet. If the repeat test shows a ratio of 9(!) then there is far more going on than how much cheese he eats. If the triglycerides if satisfactory, I imagine the LDL must be particularly high and I would be discussing a referral to a specialist for hyperlipidaemia with those numbers.

My sample of one experience is that diet makes a little difference but not masses. I’m on statins and with my normal diet my cholesterol is 5.2, with healthy eating it is 4.8 and if I go hardcore low fat vegan and half starve myself I can get it temporarily down to 4 (but can’t sustain this).

I'm sorry to say that this reminds me of my cousin trying to help her husband with his diabetes. Her H. is lovely man but basically wouldnt do anything to help himself but ask doctors for useful drugs.

I guess I'm saying what others are saying -- you need to know the limits of what support you can offer and don't get upset about the fact that there are limits. Don't drop your cooking pleasures if husband turns out to be reluctant to (eg) drop his cheese habits. You'll have to make peace with the limits of what you can do and limits of what he might be willing to do to help himself.

Oat biscuits? Two birds one stone.

I think a lot of oat crackers are sweet and I happily have them instead of a sweet snack...

My guess is he wont' find oat cakes sweet enough.

There is some evidence to link high sugar intake to bad cholesterol profile.

if I understand that article right, the link with bad cholesterols isn't as strong with sugar as it is with saturated fats. Another area to think about, I suppose.

Why can he not go on the statins? At least that's one problem being taken care of.
I was put on statins years ago and I only weighed 9st simply because it's in my family and very little I can do else regarding diet.
I never ate fried food or takeaways or those types of typical 'bad' foods.
I did cut out the Haagen Daas though and ate Walls icecream instead as it's lower fat. Also cut out the dinners containing cream.

Haven’t read all the replies but I have an inherited form of high cholesterol (was diagnosed as a child) and typically lots of GPs and even the official NHS advice is way out of date.

In short: you don’t need to avoid cholesterol in food (eg eggs etc). You absolutely need to avoid trans fats so avoid flora etc. Cook in olive oil or even butter rather than vegetable oils. Do not reheat already heated oils/fats as that creates trans fats. I spent years being told to have fat free yoghurt etc and now advice is shifting to eating full fat, less processed foods.
Massively reduce proportion of sugar / starch in diet ie much less white carbs, if any; go for whole grains if possible.

Things that have sorted my cholesterol out more than any dated dietary advice:

• exercise - it’s always lower when I’ve been regularly exercising
• less sugar (including alcohol) - it’s always lower when the balance of my diet has been more fats, more pulses and grains, less sugar and refined carbs
• portion - eating less. As consultant pointed out, you can have the healthiest diet going but if you’re eating double what you need it’s still going to cause problems

Statins work on people with FH, more so than people who don’t have inherited high cholesterol, so worth asking GP about