Hello. I am been advised to lower my cholesterol - it doesn't need much - just a tweak here or there to my diet - and one thing that was suggested was swapping my usual slice of toast in the morning with a breakfast bar. So, I wondered if anyone has any suggestions for easy breakfasts. During the week, I normally eat breakfast at my desk so simple is good.
Thanks
There is no simple answer!. Need more information on your numbers.
Depending on your numbers, a life style change, food intake control and regular exercise is necessary.
Try full English.
Thank you for your quick reply. Total cholesterol is 5.9, so as I said, not much change needed. I cannot eat a full English whilst at my desk at work in a busy office. It has to be something easy to carry in to work and easy to eat, ie reasonably discrete and not messy. Preferably something that I can come back to if interrupted.
Try getting up early & have a nice bowel Muesli, that you can take your time eating . it would be a lot less stressful that what you are doing at the moment. & that has to be good for you.
5.9 used to be normal. Until the powers that be lowered the norm so that about three quarters of the population come into the category of "needing" statins. I'd say, eat your toast and anything else you like, you have a healthy cholesterol. A cholesterol of 5.9 CANNOT kill you. Unless of course you cut out all the nutrients your body needs in your efforts to lower it!
Add Avocado to your toast and butter (real butter), I used to eat an Avocado and an orange for lunch at me desk!
How about smoothies?
This may not sound like an easy breakfast but it is! Put 50g of porridge oats in a bowl add 250 ml of water microwave for 2 mins. serve with a little milk. You will feel fuller for longer and it helps lower cholesterol too.
Soya milk and a little fruit such as banana or raspberries can make it even more palatable. Porridge is sold in single serve packets.
Unless one has a dairy allergy or is vegan I can see no point in using soya milk. At least cow's milk is not man manufactured, and if cows are grass fed it will contain vitamin K2.
Vitamin K2 in UK milk? May be difficult to find milk with K2 in UK.
There is some, but I can't remember the brand name(s) it's sold under right now.
It is meant to be in milk from grass fed cows, perhaps organic milk is fed on grass?
Milk contains lactose, which is a sugar. Soya does not. For some people sioya will be better.
Is there any sugar in milk?
There is NO (I repeat NO) added sugar in regular milk. The sugar on the label is milk is all from lactose, which is what makes milk what it is. It is the naturally occurring sugar found in milk and isn't used as an added sugar in foods.
There are many man made milk available today!
THAT IS WHAT i SAID. Lactose can be bad for some conditions.
I would think lactose intolerance would need to be something a person would develop rather than inherit, or maybe they would not survive infancy?
Lactose,glucose, sucrose, fructose and maltose are all sugars, which have the same effect on the body. Chemically theu differ only in the pace at which they are broken down by the digestive system.
Pure white refined sugar is the most dangerous, because it can be absorbed into the blod stream the most rapidly.
Smoothies with whole grains added, + avocados - home made or freshly made. Natural live Yogurt pot + piece of whole fruit. Personally I avoid all carbs - especially at breakfast.
Thanks for the replies. I can't face food until I've been awake for about 2 hours, just my way, so getting up earlier isn't the answer for me. Breakfast bars are supposed to have oats in them whereas toast/bread does not. And has been pointed out above, porridge oats also helps to lower cholesterol so I might try that.
Have seen people eating breakfast in the car, while waiting for train, in the train, while walking to work and so on.
One can get up early to find time for breakfast!
Any food that does not give any smell is OK to be taken at desk. I used to do 12 hour shift work, on night shift people had dinner and dirty plates are still there to be taken away by the cleaners when day shift starts!!
As I got older eating at desk went away.
The best thing is to find time to eat food away from the desk because of hygiene.
I don't make a habit of it, but I sometimes eat breakfast on the train, either a mug of plain or lightly salted porridge from a station buffet, or an omlette while sat in one of the ever-decreasing number of restaurant cars. What's the problem? I think less sleep would be worse for me than breakfast while travelling.
I usually have 4 - 6 eggs a week (eggs are ok btw)... other days I eat low fat cheese containing plant sterols namely Kraft slices ... sometimes with homemade oatmeal bread to further enhance the effects
Hi pam
Most breakfast bars are full of sugar, so I'd give them a wide berth. They're very unlikely to lower your cholesterol. If you do have a cereal bar look out for one that's relatively low in sugar, and contains oats an nuts. But I think it's a bad idea.
I also end up eating breakfast at my desk, so I have 50g of nuts, either almonds or walnuts are good. Almonds lower cholesterol dramatically in some people, but not others. Walnuts are a good source of omega 3.
However I have to say that if my cholesterol was 5.9 I wouldn't be worried in the slightest. A recent study in Norway, the HUNT 2 study showed that in women cholesterol of around 6 was associated with a lower risk of heart disease than a cholesterol of 5. So if you want to reduce your risk, concentrate on healthy eating overall - emphasising fruit and veg, pulses, fish,nuts and wholegrains, and get pleny of exercise.
Link to the HUNT 2 study here. It certainly makes for interesting reading.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articl...
Thank you for this link. From what I have read there is no need for any medication for me to lower cholesterol. Will continue with food intake control, regular exercise and healthy eating.
wat about a bananna and a yogart that good
its called Kraft cholesterol lowering cheese in Australia
Which? analysed cereal bars and found out that some were 40% sugar.
bbc.co.uk/news/health-19300160
Thanks for this. Can't say I'm surprised by the results.
well its not natural for sure butfor lowering cholesterol it has plant sterols... the alternative is to eat cottage cheeese or other low fat cheeses
If 25% of cholesterol comes from our food intake, "how much of cholesterol comes from a breakfast?"
Eating three healthy meals the best way forward!
My breakfast is a half a cup of oat squares with 1 tablespoon of ground flax seed, 1 tablespoon of ground oats, a few ground walnuts, a little fruit (banana or blueberries), and soy milk. I can't take statins anymore so I'm hoping this helps lower my cholesterol. Will have it tested in about 6 weeks so we'll see.
Thanks for all the replies. When I went shopping today I got some porridge oats (can I eat these raw?) and some granola both of which on their packets claimed to help lower cholesterol. So new diet for me from Tuesday.
You can soak them rather than cooking them if you haven't got time. Put them in a jar in the fridge over night.
Raw oats are found in many mueslis, so you definitely can eat them raw! I mix them with yogurt sometimes or a seed or nut butter (I like cashew butter!) and a little maple or agave syrup (ha! I bet that'll upset some!) so they're not so dry.
This info is readily available but the cholesterol rubbish is embedded in people's minds now (doctors as well) and it'll take generations before anyone sees sense about this. Fifty years of telling people that saturated fat is poison! If by now the population hasn't realised this was a big con, I'm afraid it never will.
How about citing the meta-analyses properly so they can find them, rather than helping preserve the status quo by appearing to be a handwaving crank?
There are many ways to make cheese and some use sour salt (E331) and so on. Is there a list of which cheese are "cheese for health"? It's not like any cheese is especially natural: all are recipes of man.
Thank you! So basically, there are other things at work, but they don't know all of them yet and would like more research funding please? Comments like "higher consumption of red meat should still be considered harmful, but it’s just that the saturates may not be the principal explanation, as is traditionally perceived, for the harmful cardiovascular effects of red meat.”
The ingredients are but one part of a recipe. You can easily take milk 99.5% and salt and produce something harmful.
Have you ever considered an all-veggie breakfast? Works great for getting the cholesterol in check, and you'll feel much more active throughout the day. My C-care nurse ( C-care is a healthcare provider in Toronto - c-care.ca ) set me up with an all-veggie diet, and I still follow it. My cholesterol has been in control since then!
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