Why a plant based diet is good for your heart

Our heart is the hardest working organ in our body, it works all day and all night and pumps about 100,000 times a day. It is obviously essential to life. However, with the consumption of modern and processed foods that can be high in fat and added salt, this can have a detrimental to your cardiovascular system. Diets that are high in salt and fat can add extra stress to the cardiovascular system and can contribute to atherosclerosis (build up of plaque in the arteries . The plaque is comprised of cholesterol, calcium and other substances in the blood.

According to the Journal of the American Heart Association – by eating mostly plant-based foods and less animal-based you may be encouraging better heart health and working toward reducing the risk of dying from a heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular disease.

A large part of why plant based helps your heart lies in the fact that it helps to reduce cholesterol – as it is high in fibre. Fibre acts as like a ‘broom’ and can help clean up extra cholesterol and move it to the bowel for elimination.

This is why people who have high cholesterol are advised to increase their fibre intake.  It highlights how moving to consuming more plants help to support normal blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and platelet aggregation (all things that contribute and cause cardiovascular disease).

There are multiple reasons why plant based supports heart health – it is high in fibre, high in antioxidants, high in phytonutrients and low in cholesterol. Also, plant-based has no added sugars, salts or additives as it is food in its natural form – making the process of digestion much easier for the body.