Foods To Avoid With HIGH Blood Pressure

Foods To Avoid With HIGH Blood Pressure

If you or a loved one has high blood pressure, your diet should below in sodium, sugar and trans fats, so here are the top foods you should really avoid.

Pickles

Low in calories but high in sodium.  A medium pickle can have about 570 mg of sodium, which is close to your daily recommended sodium limit of 2300 mg.  Yes, I can hear you saying, "but it's a pickled cucumber", yes, you're right, but with the added sodium, it's not something that you should reach for to snack on daily.

Canned Chicken Noodle Soup

I know that your Mom may have given you chicken noodle soup as a "comfort food" when you were feeling under the weather, but you're a big kid now with hypertension (high blood pressure) and 880 mg of sodium in a one cup serving is NOT comforting.

Sauerkraut

here's another delicious food that is low calories, but with 460 mg of sodium, you should just "hold the kraut" unless it's a EXTRA special rare occasion!

Fast Food French Fries (say that 4 times fast!)

Many fast food chains are using non trans fat oil now, however, there are still several that haven't made the switch yet.  Regardless of what type of oil fries are cooked in, they provide a large dose of unhealthy fat and sodium (270 mg for a medium fry) and have little to NO nutritional value.

Bacon

OK, don't shoot the messenger!  I love eating bacon almost as much as I love to breathe.  However, with 270 mg of sodium per three slices, if you have high blood pressure, you should look for low sodium varieties.  There are  several companies with nitrate free bacon (Applegate organic meat) that is delicious that you can try as well.

Frozen Pot Pies

A single pot pie equals a serving of about 1300-1400 mg of sodium and 35g of fat (not the good fat either), which is 900 mg short of your daily  recommended max of 2300. The fat in the pot pies is mostly trans fats, which you should remove from your diet altogether.  I understand maybe you bought the frozen pies because they were priced, 4 for $5.00, but you have to wonder what crap they put in there to make it so cheapall  I'm just saying.

Donuts

Taste good but terrible for you.  Donuts are cooked in trans fat oil (remember you are avoiding this, right?) and is a surefire way to pack on the pounds if you are trying to gain weight and increase your risk for diabetes.

Ramen Noodles

You aren't in college anymore so why are you still even eating these?  Cheap you say?  Yes, so is spreadables, that doesn't mean you should be eating it!

One package of ramen noodles adds 1580 mg of sodium! It's not the noodles themselves that are SO bad, it's the flavor packet that contains the majority of the sodium.

Margarine

If you like eating plastic and increasing your risk for a possible heart attack (due to the artery clogging ingredients (trans fats, etc.) then you should continue eating margarine. Choose unsalted grass fed organic butter when possible, however, if organic butter isn't available go for  REAL BUTTER.

Sugar

Nutrition 101 that you may have learned in 9th grade: foods full of sugar cause you to gain weight.  Obesity is a HUGE contributing factor for high blood pressure that is NOT hereditary.  The extra weight strains your heart and slow down blood flow.

Alcohol

When you drink alcohol in excess,  your blood pressure increases and the pressure to your blood vessels increases your risk for other unnecessary complications.

Salt

Too much sodium will damage your heart and arteries, which raises your blood pressure.  Need I say more?

This is certainly not a complete list of the foods that you should AVOID, but it's a great start to improving your overall health.

Every day you wake up is a another opportunity to do better than you did the day before. Feed your body real food and it will love you back, feed your body junk and you will feel the side effects of that junk, often in the form of various body ailments... high blood pressure is just one of them.

If this post was helpful to you and you have family or friends with high blood pressure, please share it or like it with them.

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