Heart-Healthy Foods That Are Oh So Delicious
Adopting a heart-friendly diet is one of the most important things we can do to help support heart health. But what does it mean to truly “eat better” for a healthy heart? Luckily, the American Heart Association® has taken out the guess work when it comes to making heart-healthy choices.
5 Simple, Heart-Smart Tips from the American Heart Association
Here are a few simple tips and tools to make heart-healthy eating easy and enjoyable:
- Paint your plate with color. Getting a wide variety of fruits and vegetables of all hues and shades helps ensure you’re getting all the vitamins, minerals and nutrients you need – and it makes meals look more appetizing, too!
- Curate a cookbook library. The American Heart Association offers more than a dozen cookbooks with tantalizing culinary inspiration for everyone, whether you’re a newbie in the kitchen or an experienced chef, eating solo or cooking for a family.
- Get wise on good fats. Replacing saturated and trans fats with monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats helps support a healthy heart. Fat also adds satisfying richness to meals. When cooking, reach for canola, corn, olive, peanut, safflower, soybean and sunflower oil.
- Think swaps, not subtractions. A heart-friendly diet doesn’t require deprivation. Focus on ways to add good-for-you foods and look for opportunities to “sneak in” easy substitutions where you can.
- Find Heart-Check foods. At the grocery store, be on the lookout for the Heart-Check mark on product packages. The American Heart Association’s Heart-Check Food Certification program helps you easily identify foods in every aisle that help support good health and nutrition.
What Makes an American Heart Association Heart-Check Certified Product?
The American Heart Association established the Heart-Check Food Certification Program in 1995 to give consumers an easy, reliable way to identify foods that can be part of a heart-healthy eating pattern. The iconic red-and-white Heart-Check mark helps shoppers cut through the confusion of excess information in stores and make heart healthy choices. When you see the Heart-Check mark on a food package, you know the food has been certified to meet program requirements based on the nutritional criteria of the American Heart Association.
You can own the day with four LEAN CUISINE options that are American Heart Association Heart-Check certified. Enjoy these heart-healthy frozen meals with bold and vibrant flavors:*
These products meet the following American Heart Association Heart-Check criteria:
- Total Fat: 3 g or less per 100 g of product** and 30% or less calories
- Saturated Fat: 1 g or less per 100 g of product** and less than 10% calories
- Trans Fat: Less than 0.5 g per labeled serving from trans fat.** Products containing partially hydrogenated oils are not eligible for certification.
- Cholesterol: 20 mg or less per 100 g of product** and 90 mg or less per labeled serving** for a main dish and 120 mg or less per labeled serving** for a meal
- Sodium: 600 mg or less per labeled serving**
- Beneficial nutrients (naturally occurring): 10% or more of the Daily Value of 1 of 6 nutrients (vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, calcium, protein or dietary fiber) per the entire main dish or meal
LEAN CUISINE is committed to providing four satisfying, Heart-Check Certified options* that can help you eat well without sacrificing taste or convenience. Visit heartcheck.org for more information on heart healthy living, the Heart-Check Certification program and currently certified products.
* While many factors affect heart disease, diets low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of this disease. Certification only applies to LEAN CUISINE® Herb Roasted Chicken, Apple Cranberry Chicken, Garlic Sesame Noodles with Beef, and Butternut Squash Ravioli.
**Measurement amounts in addition to or instead of Reference Amounts Customarily Consumed
