Eat your way to lower cholesterol

Orlando Sentinel | In The Kitchen

Another article promotes a plant-based diet over drugs to reduce cholesterol:

It's called the portfolio diet. And you won't find it in any bookstore.

Portfolio was developed at the University of Toronto and funded in part by some big players in the food industry: Unilever; Loblaw, Canada's largest food distributor; and the Almond Board of California.

The goal is simple: to see if a "portfolio" of foods, each with some minor cholesterol-lowering benefits, could have a larger, additive effect when eaten together as part of a regular diet. The concept was developed by David Jenkins, professor of nutrition and metabolism at the University of Toronto and a strong proponent of using food to help reduce blood cholesterol levels.

But the portfolio approach won't be for everyone. Strictly followed, it's a near-vegan regimen, meaning no meat, eggs, poultry, fish or dairy -- a diet unlikely to appeal to those who love juicy burgers, fries and a shake.

"It's a real challenge for people to stay on this kind of diet," notes Alice Lichtenstein, professor of nutrition at Tufts University.

It wasn't a challenge for me to go vegan, though that points to the concern behind some animal activists' statements that going veg solely for health reasons is much less likely to stick compared to going veg for ethical reasons.

Tags: health | diet | cholesterol