Stop Hypertension with the DASH diet

When it comes to heart disease and stroke, high blood pressure is a major risk factor, but there is actually a diet that can help reduce your risk of not only hypertension but other diseases as well. Heidi Harkoff is a nutrition specialist from the New England Food and Dairy Council. She joins me now. Welcome back, Heidi. Thank you. How big of a problem is high blood pressure in the country? It's very common. Actually, one in three adults does have high blood pressure. Okay. And what's exciting about the DASH diet, which stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, is that it's truly research-based, years of research, clinical studies, taking a look at what happens when you choose the DASH diet. And they actually find that people who are mildly hypertensive can experience a significant reduction in their blood pressure. And we actually have some recommendations, daily recommendations that we'll put up on the screen. Two to three servings of low-fat or fat-free dairy. That's right. Probably a good place to start. Eight to ten servings of fruits and vegetables, six to eleven servings of grains, preferably whole grains, and up to six ounces of the lean meats, poultry, fish. And then, on a weekly basis, aiming to have at least three to five servings per week of nuts, seeds, and legumes, which are like the dried beans and peas, black beans, chickpeas, things such as that. That doesn't seem too hard to get into your diet over a course of a week, right? Well, that's nice to hear, because those numbers can sound a little bit large. And what I want to do is really show how simple it is to get that in, because when you think eight to ten servings of fruits and vegetables, it sounds like a large volume, until you take a look at what a serving really is. So I brought some samples in. Yeah. We'll start with the whole grains. Yep. So on the DASH diet, the recommendation is six to eleven grains, and those ranges are there depending what calorie level you're at. So the lower ranges would give you about 1,600 calories, which is probably average for most women. And the emphasis is to really make a shift from where Americans are right now, which is mostly white grains, to a whole grain. So this is what an ounce of a whole grain cereal would look like. One slice of bread is an ounce of grain, and that's a half a cup of a whole wheat pasta. That's not your typical serving of pasta, or should it be? It doesn't have to be. Okay. So the goal is to be in that six to eleven range. And so what you're looking at there is three servings right now. That's three servings. Oh, no. Oh, separately. Yeah. Okay. So if you're going to have dinner, we'll take this off. There you go. So that would be your... One serving of pasta. Now, certainly at breakfast, if you have a bowl of cereal, at lunch you have two slices of bread, that's two. At dinner, you can have another serving of that as well, and still stay in that six to eleven range. Okay. The key is to look for whole. Now, taking a look at the fruits and vegetables, this is probably where most Americans are really falling short. You want to get those greens in, right? And more matters. So this is a sample. One serving of a leafy green would be one cup, which is about what's in this bowl right here. That's a half a cup of baby carrots, a half a cup of broccoli, half a cup of green beans. Each of those are one serving. And then taking a look at fruits, it would be, again, a half a cup if it's something such as berries, or if it's a whole fruit, it would be a medium piece of fruit, such as this apple and this banana. And canned fruit has its place as well. You can choose that. This is easy. You can go right into lunch, right? It's portable. And when you're thinking about all of this, it's important that while we think of hypertension as something focusing about adults, the DASH diet is really a great way to raise an entire family because it's just very sound eating habits. So taking a look at the meat recommendation. This is where most Americans are doing fine already. So the recommendation is up to six ounces. It's hard to know what six ounces is. I was going to say, do you weigh it, or is there something to go by? Well, one way to think about it is three ounces is the size of a deck of cards. So there is a way. And when you think about when you go to a restaurant... You get much bigger portions. You do get bigger portions than that. So this is what six ounces of chicken would look like or six ounces of salmon. Certainly, if you want to have some of those lean proteins at lunch, you can simply think about having about half of that with your sandwich or, you know, something like half the size of the salmon. If you're going to enjoy some of that at dinner, an egg counts as one ounce of the lean protein category. Lots of variety here. It is. And what's really great about this is this offers up a lot of potassium, magnesium. And we're about to talk about the calcium part of this, because those are the nutrients that really help with high blood pressure. And they are the ones being called out by the government, as most Americans are falling very short on. So taking a look at the low-fat and fat-free dairy, the recommendation is two to three servings. And the government recommends in the dietary guidelines to have about three servings of dairy a day. So how can you do that? Not overdo it with calories either. No. You know what? If... Actually, a glass of fat-free milk has less calories than a glass of orange juice. Okay. So it's really easy to stay within your calorie guideline here. And the dairy category has a lot of choices, so there's something really for everybody. But simply having a glass of milk with each meal is one way to get to your three. If you want to have other beverages at mealtime, then thinking about changing that out and having some cheese, low-fat, fat-free cheeses, that's the equivalent of one serving of cheese, what I have right there. Okay. And, you know, I think we always think of cheese sticks as being kid food, but there's a lot of... I had one for breakfast today. Well, then I'm glad you don't have that perspective. But we always think of, like, the string cheeses, but, you know, there's a great adult, a lot of adult flavors. This is a sharp white cheddar. You can also get these in flavors with jalapeno and other things mixed in, so more of the adult preferences. Very good. One of the things I want to emphasize is we're a very on-the-go society, and so we grab a lot of food at fast food places and at other restaurants. And it really is still easy to get your dairy servings in, even if you're going to fast food restaurants. I picked these up on the way in this morning. Almost every fast food chain now offers a single-serve milk. Sure. And what's wonderful is they're round. They're easy. They fit right in the cup holder, and there you go. They do. Heidi, tell me about your upcoming event in March. On March 24th, Cabot Creamery is sponsoring a session at the Greater Hartford Women's Conference. Okay. And you can go to their website, greaterhartfordwomensconference.com, to find out more about it. Georgia Costas is a well-known registered dietitian, and she'll be addressing you're never too old to be young. So you can get a lot of great nutrition tips just like this to make sure you have a healthy heart, a healthy diet, and a healthy family. Very helpful. Heidi, thanks so much for being here. You're welcome. And of course, if you'd like to learn more about the DASH diet, all you have to do is log on to the newenglanddairycouncil.org website.