What Foods Can You Eat From Dash Diet Meal Plans
DASH is an acronym standing for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, and the DASH diet is recommended by the National Institutes of Health for people who would like to lower their blood pressure and cholesterol levels naturally and without taking drugs.
 The foods you can eat on the dash meal plans include a lot of fruits, vegetables, low fat or fat free dairy products, lean meats fish and poultry, grains nuts and beans and cutting down on salt or sodium.
The author, Marla Heller, is a registered dietitian who is working on a doctorate degree in behavior sciences and health promotion. Herself diagnosed with high blood pressure in 2003, she is living proof of the effectiveness of the diet program she created.
A research project at Harvard Medical School, the Low Sodium DASH Diet study, found that lowering a person's salt intake lowered their blood pressure.
We have heard from one woman who was taking five different prescription drugs to lower her blood pressure and within two weeks of following the Dash diet her BP levels went down to lower than they had ever been in her life, and she also dropped five pounds in the process.
A lot of nutrition experts have found that foods that are high on the Glycemic Index (GI) are contributing factors not only to hypertension but also obesity, diabetes and high cholesterol. People who eat foods that are too rich in sugars, including white flour, white rice and potatoes, find themselves craving sweets, suffering from low energy levels, gaining weight, experiencing mood swings and inability to concentrate as well as more serious health issues such as diabetes and heart disease.
When you follow a meal plan that is mainly composed of low GI foods, many people find that these problems become less of an issue.
It is advised to find a list of common foods with their glycemic index and plan your eating around the lowest ones on the scale. Try to eat at least seven servings of fruits and vegetables every day, and make two of those meals low-GI ones. Switch from white flour and white rice to baked products made with whole grain flour and brown rice. Brown basmati rice is lowest on the GI scale.
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