Cholesterol is always in the news.  Trouble is, sometimes the information is more confusing than helpful and that’s not good since healthy blood cholesterol is important to a healthy heart.

To clear up some of the confusion around cholesterol, this fact sheet explains how dietary or food cholesterol differs from blood cholesterol.

• This is the cholesterol in foods such as eggs, regular milk products, meats and poultry.  Cholesterol is found only in foods that come from animals, never in vegetable products such as vegetable oil or margarine.
• Many people think that it’s the cholesterol in food that is to blame for high blood cholesterol.  Unfortunately the link is not that simple.
• Food cholesterol can raise blood cholesterol, but not nearly as much as high-fat foods do.  That’s right!  Fat, especially saturated and trans fat, not food cholesterol, is mainly to blame for raising blood cholesterol.

1. Use very little butter, margarine or vegetable oil.
2. Use skim or 1% milk only; choose cottage cheese, yogurt containing 2% or less butter fat; use lower-fat cheese such as ricotta (5% butter fat) more often; choose sherbet or frozen yogurt instead of ice cream.
3. Eat small servings (3 oz/90 grams - about the size of a deck of cards) of meat, fish and poultry; cut away extra fat before cooking and use low-fat cooking methods such as baking, broiling or braising.
4. Ease up on high-fat fast foods, convenience and salty foods.
5. Avoid high-fat baked goods such as cookies, cakes, croissants, pastries. Instead choose lower-fat products such as social tea, arrowroot, raisin or fig bar cookies and angel food cake.

•  Healthy people can eat eggs in moderation without any harmful effects on blood cholesterol.
•  However, if your blood cholesterol is too high, limit egg yolks to two a week.  The whites of eggs can be used without concern.
•  Many recipes turn out successfully using 2 eggs whites with a teaspoon of oil in place of one whole egg.

1.  Poor diets - high in fat, low in fibre
2.  Being overweight
3.  Smoking
4.  Being physically inactive
5.  Family history
6.  Aging

• There are different types of fat in food.  Some raise blood levels of bad cholesterol, some tend to lower it.  Others lower the bad and raise the good!
• These types of fat are better for heart health: polyunsaturates, monounsaturates, or omega-3 fat.   They’re found in: vegetable oils such as olive, canola, safflower, sunflower, margarine and fat in fatty fish such as salmon.
• These types of fat are harmful to heart health: saturated fat and trans fat. They’re found in: butter, lard, shortening, dairy foods except skim milk products, meat products and baked goods made with hydrogenated vegetable oil or shortening.

When blood cholesterol is too high it settles on the inside walls of blood vessels. As it builds up, blood vessels become clogged and the blood vessels become clogged and the blood can’t flow properly to the heart and brain.  When this happens the chances of having a heart attack or stroke are greatly increased.

Cholesterol travels through your blood packaged with other fats and protein. These cholesterol travel packs are called lipoproteins.   There are two key kinds of lipoproteins:

1. Low Density Lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-cholesterol), often called the bad cholesterol) is linked to heart disease and stroke.
2. High Density Lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-cholesterol) is a good form of cholesterol.  The more you have the better, since HDL-cholesterol is good for heart health.

Blood tests can measure LDL - cholesterol, HD L- cholesterol and total cholesterol (TC).
These levels are linked to a greater risk of heart disease and stroke:

• Total cholesterol greater than 6.2 mmol/L
• LDL-cholesterol (bad type) greater than 4.14 mmol/L
• HDL-cholesterol (good type) less than 0.9 mmol/L

Keep your diet low in fat, especially low in saturated and trans fat.  This will help reduce dietary cholesterol because saturated fat and cholesterol are found together in many foods.

Eat more foods high in complex carbohydrate and fibre.   Complex carbohydrate is starch and is found in grain foods, legumes and some starchy vegetables like potatoes and corn.  Fibre or roughage is found in some of the same foods such as whole grains, legumes, all vegetables and fruit.