Maintaining a heart-healthy diet is easiest when you can prepare your meals at home. That way, you have complete control over the ingredients, including how much salt is added. If you have high blood pressure, eating out can feel like navigating a minefield. It’s hard to know how much sodium is actually in the entree you’re considering.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, foods from fast food restaurants contain an average of 1,848 milligrams of sodium per 1,000 calories. It’s even worse when it comes to dine-in restaurant food. Foods from dine-in restaurants have an average of 2,090 milligrams of sodium per 1,000 calories. To put that in perspective, the U.S. Dietary Guidelines recommend keeping sodium under 2,300 milligrams a day because too much sodium increases blood pressure.
It’s unrealistic to plan on eating all of your meals at home. You still want to be able to enjoy dinners out with loved ones. Sometimes—especially when you’re traveling—fast food is your only option. With that in mind, Parade spoke with cardiologists about what people with high blood pressure should keep in mind when ordering at fast food restaurants.
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If you’re taking medication to lower your blood pressure, you may be wondering why you have to consider your diet at all. Isn’t it the medication’s job to lower your blood pressure? “Most high blood pressure is controlled rather than permanently ‘reversed,’ and medication is only one part of that control. I tell patients that blood pressure medicine is not a permission slip to ignore diet,” says Dr. Weston Hickey, MD, FACC, FSCAI, a cardiologist with Willowbrook Cardiovascular Associates in Houston, Texas.
Dr. Hickey explains that while medication can help keep blood pressure levels in check, as soon as someone stops taking it, levels will go back up. “Think of it less like an antibiotic that clears an infection and more like a thermostat quietly holding the temperature down,” he says. “Treating high blood pressure with medication while ignoring your diet is like turning on the air conditioning during a Texas summer but leaving all the doors and windows wide open. The medication is working hard to lower the pressure, but a high-sodium, highly processed diet is actively pushing it back up.”
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Dr. Alex Gyftopoulos, MD, a preventive cardiologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, points out that maintaining a heart-healthy diet helps prevent obesity and high cholesterol, two other important parts of caring for your heart that a blood pressure-lowering medication doesn’t address.
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The Worst Fast Food Items for High Blood Pressure
Unfortunately, most foods on fast food restaurant menus aren’t exactly great for heart health—or health in general. Dr. Gyftopoulos says that the worst foods for high blood pressure include anything highly processed and high in sodium.
Dr. Hickey agrees.
“The single biggest offender in fast food is sodium, and it's largely hidden. Salt acts like a sponge in your bloodstream. Where sodium goes, water follows, so a high-salt meal pulls extra fluid into your blood vessels. More fluid in the same set of pipes means more pressure pushing against the walls—that's your blood pressure rising,” he says.
While you probably already know that means skipping the French fries, some highly salted foods that many people may overlook include burger buns, cheese, pickles, seasoning on meat and breading on fried food, Dr. Hickey says, adding that fast food items that include refined carbs, saturated fat and sugar are also important to minimize. That means skipping items like breaded chicken nuggets, burgers and soda.
Related: The One Thing You Should Never Do Immediately After Waking up if You Have High Blood Pressure
Want a fast food order that’s cardiologist-approved? Here are five options to consider.
Most fast food restaurants do offer salads, offering a healthier alternative to the burger-and-fries combos. “Diets rich in fresh vegetables support healthy blood pressure,” Dr. Gyftopoulos says of why salad is a great fast food option for people with hypertension.
If you can, Dr. Hickey suggests adding heart-healthy foods like grilled chicken, avocado, beans, nuts or seeds. He points out that beans, avocado, nuts and seeds all have potassium, which helps balance out sodium.
When ordering your salad, both cardiologists say to skip the dressing, which is often high in sodium or sugar. If a naked salad sounds unappetizing to you, Dr. Hickey recommends having the dressing on the side, which is a way to control how much you consume. And if you can choose between an oily dressing and a creamy one, go for the oily option.
2. Burrito or burrito bowl
Taco Bell or Chipotle can be great fast food options when it comes to eating for heart health. “Beans are a good source of protein and fiber, which can be an important part of a healthy diet,” Dr. Gyftopoulos says, and Dr. Hickey adds to this, calling beans a superfood for blood pressure.
Even though bean-based entrees are heart-healthy, many can still be high in sodium. Dr. Gyftopoulos points out that most fast food restaurants provide nutrition information in-store or online, which is worth giving a read and checking out the sodium before ordering.
If you’re building a burrito bowl, Dr. Hickey recommends making beans the foundation and adding veggies, grilled chicken and fresh salsa or pico de gallo, which has less sodium than salsa that isn’t freshly made. When making your bowl, he says to skip the sour cream and cheese, which can be high in saturated fat and sodium.
If you’re a chicken nugget lover, it’s worth seeking out a Chick-fil-A to satisfy your craving. It’s one of the few fast food restaurants that offers grilled nuggets instead of ones that are breaded.
“Choosing grilled chicken over fried is one of the easiest and most effective swaps you can make at a drive-thru. When chicken is breaded and fried, it acts like a sponge for unhealthy saturated and trans fats, and the breading itself is heavily salted. Grilled chicken bypasses the fryer oil and the salty crust, drastically reducing both the sodium content and the inflammatory fats that stiffen blood vessels over time,” Dr. Hickey says.
When eating your nuggets, Dr. Hickey suggests just being mindful of the dipping sauces, which can be high in sodium.
4. Grilled chicken sandwich
Nowhere near a Chick-fil-A? Grilled chicken sandwiches (found at fast food joints like Culver’s, Panera Bread and Subway) are the next best thing—especially if you can add lettuce and tomato.
Dr. Gyftopolous explains that grilling uses less oil and other fats compared to frying, which makes grilled chicken sandwiches lower in calories than breaded chicken sandwiches. “This may better support the goal of maintaining a healthy body weight and, by extension, a healthy blood pressure,” he says.
Starbucks’ spinach feta wrap and egg bites are both heart-healthy orders, according to both cardiologists. “Egg-based meals can be a better choice than pastries, doughnuts or breakfast sandwiches made with processed meat. Eggs provide protein and can improve satiety, while vegetables such as spinach, kale, mushrooms and peppers add fiber and beneficial nutrients,” Dr. Hickey says.
As with other fast food items, both cardiologists say that these egg-based foods can still be high in sodium, so it’s a good idea to check the nutrition panel online if it’s not available in stores.
Tips for ordering
When it comes to navigating fast food restaurants while trying to support your blood pressure, Dr. Hickey says to focus on these five guidelines:
1. Choose grilled instead of fried.2. Get sauces and dressings on the side.3. Drink water instead of soda.4. Add vegetables or beans.5. Skip the extra cheese and processed meat.
“Those five decisions can travel with you to any restaurant, from fast food to fine dining,” he says. And they’re good guidelines to follow for everyone, not just people with high blood pressure.
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Sources
Reducing sodium in restaurant foods is an opportunity for choice. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.Dr. Weston Hickey, MD, FACC, FSCAI, cardiologist with Willowbrook Cardiovascular Associates in Houston, Texas.Dr. Alex Gyftopoulos, MD, preventive cardiologist at the University of Maryland Medical Center and an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland.Hence then, the article about the 5 healthiest fast food orders if you have high blood pressure according to cardiologists was published today ( ) and is available on Parade ( Saudi Arabia ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
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