No, this post is not about romance or about secrets of a last­ing mar­riage! But with Valentine’s Day and Heart Health Month just around the cor­ner, it’s the per­fect time to think about hearts in gen­er­al and my heart in par­tic­u­lar. Near­ly every late rel­a­tive on my dad’s side of the fam­i­ly had heart dis­ease and I’ve been tak­ing med­ica­tion for mild high blood pres­sure for years. So it looks like I am proud­ly sit­ting on that branch of the Her­mann fam­i­ly tree. My doc­tor says to keep doing what I’m doing, which is stay­ing slim, exer­cis­ing, eat­ing health­ful­ly, and not smok­ing. But at a recent spon­sored con­fer­ence in Vien­na, I learned about oth­er things to con­sid­er. This blog post was inspired by infor­ma­tion gath­ered at the spon­sored con­fer­ence but the con­tent was devel­oped inde­pen­dent­ly by me.

First, I need to stop being a wimp about omega-3s, a type of fat­ty acid shown to boost heart health, as well as aid in brain and eye devel­op­ment and health. They’re found most­ly in fat­ty fish, wal­nuts, eggs from chick­ens that eat omega-3-sup­ple­ment­ed feed, and cer­tain for­ti­fied foods. Omega-3s also are avail­able in sup­ple­ments. I nev­er real­ly wor­ried about omega-3s but I recent­ly took a blood test that showed my blood omega-3s in the inter­me­di­ate range; my blood work report rec­om­mends sup­ple­ments so I guess I’d bet­ter get those start­ed. Brand sug­ges­tions are wel­come, as I’m ner­vous about how well I will tol­er­ate them — some peo­ple com­plain about fish burps!

At the same spon­sored con­fer­ence in Vien­na, I heard good news about one of my favorite foods, cheese. Var­i­ous stud­ies sug­gest that it might not be bad for heart health, even though it is high in sat­u­rat­ed fat. A 2015 review cred­its the fer­men­ta­tion process used to make cheese and also yogurt – but addi­tion­al research is need­ed. The cal­ci­um in cheese also may play a role. The same blood test that assessed my omega-3s said that my blood has a lot of sat­u­rat­ed fat. Guess that’s the cheese talk­ing.

Here’s anoth­er thing that I’m doing right, eat­ing beans. Not­ed researcher John Sieven­piper, from the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, point­ed out all the ben­e­fits of legumes in the diet, includ­ing steady­ing blood glu­cose, low­er­ing LDL cho­les­terol, man­ag­ing blood pres­sure, and aid­ing weight loss, pos­si­bly by mak­ing peo­ple feel full. He is con­duct­ing a study on the effects of adding beans to the Port­fo­lio Diet; I wish I could take part but Toron­to is too far a com­mute! Drain­ing and rins­ing canned or cooked beans helps remove com­pounds that can make beans “noisy”; it also low­ers the sodi­um.

My newest busi­ness ven­ture, Your Kitchen’s Wardrobe, helps my clients makeover their pantries and fridges in a way that makes health­ful meals the easy and fash­ion­able choice. One of my favorite items of kitchen cloth­ing is canned beans. I use them in soups, stews, sal­ads, and sides, and also to make a quick creamy dip that resem­bles hum­mus. My dip recipe is real­ly ver­sa­tile – any bean, any oil, any sea­son­ing. Here, I use small white beans, wal­nut oil for omega-3s, gar­lic, white wine vine­gar, and Pen­zeys herbes de Provence. This dip is named for my friend and col­league Chris, who helped weave togeth­er the conference’s pos­i­tive food mes­sages about heart health.

 

Chris’ Bean Dip a la Provence
Makes 4 serv­ings

1 14–16 oz can small white beans, drained and rinsed
2 gar­lic cloves, prefer­ably in their husk
2 table­spoons wal­nut oil
1 table­spoon white wine vine­gar
1/2 tea­spoon herbes de Provence

 

  1. Place the beans in the bowl of a food proces­sor.
  2. Microwave the gar­lic cloves for 15–20 sec­onds or until soft. Remove from the microwave, peel, and place in the food proces­sor bowl.
  3. Add the oil, vine­gar, and herbes de Provence. Process until smooth, about 30 sec­onds. You may need to add a table­spoon or two of water to thin the con­sis­ten­cy.
  4. Gar­nish with wal­nut pieces, plus a driz­zle of oil and sprin­kle of herbes if desired. Serve with cru­dité and pita, flat­bread, or crack­ers. A cheese plate makes a tasty com­ple­ment.