Frankenstein Foods To Avoid
For Lower Blood Pressure

It’s becoming increasingly clear that those seeking lower blood pressure should avoid processed foods...

It’s certainly no coincidence that runaway rates of high blood pressure, diabetes and extreme obesity in the West coincide with the rise of these products.

As a matter of fact, two specific processed foods, products that have come to dominate entire food groups, are now clearly linked to obesity and high blood pressure. They are hydrogenated, or trans-, fats and high fructose sweeteners. These freaks can justly be called “Frankenstein Foods” as examples of science gone wrong.

For their many commercial benefits, hydrogenated fats have found their way into countless processed foods. Virtually everything that could contain oil or fat – breads, cookies, cakes, whipped “spreads”, and sweets – stood to “benefit” from the addition of these fats.

Trans-fats undergo a process that turns liquid oil into solid fat. We know this substance most commonly as margarine. The characteristics of many of these margarines are no coincidence; the chemical structure of hydrogenated fat is similar to plastic. Needless to say, trans-fats do not occur naturally.

Ironically, margarine and other hydrogenated fats were once promoted as healthy alternatives to saturated fats. But we now know that natural fats contain trace minerals, amino acids and other nutrients essential to good health. It’s hydrogenated fats that are the monsters.

Trans-fats are closely linked to the rise in obesity, heart disease and diabetes. They are particularly worrying for the way they make you pile on fat around the abdomen. This abdominal fat pumps out dangerous chemicals that contribute to high LDL (bad) cholesterol and inflammation/stiffening of blood vessels. And what is the result of these actions? You guessed it: high blood pressure!

Consumers need to read food labels carefully and treat hydrogenated fats with caution. And if you have hypertension you should avoid them like the plague. Of course, with extensive coverage of the health risks of trans-fats this advice may seem old hat. A number of progressive supermarkets and food producers have even taken the first steps to ban trans-fats in their products.

Not so the second Frankenstein food, which has come to dominate the category of sweeteners: high fructose syrups. These sweeteners were likewise promoted as healthy alternatives to the dreaded cane sugar. Food producers have pulled the wool over the public’s eye by stressing the association of the name “fructose” with fruit. Fruit does contain fructose but it is by no means the same substance as the high fructose syrups, most often corn syrup, used in the food industry.

High fructose syrups are only now being exposed as a health risk and few people recognize the extent of the problem. High fructose corn syrup is cheaper than cane sugar and many times sweeter. The result is not surprising; high fructose syrup is literally everywhere in processed foods from soft drinks to ketchup to spaghetti sauce. Even Coca-Cola has used high fructose corn syrup since 1985.

Like hydrogenated fats, fructose sweeteners also increase belly fat, much more so than conventional sugar. The consequence is a dangerous condition called “metabolic syndrome”. Obesity, defective insulin metabolism, high cholesterol and hypertension are all results. What’s more, fructose sweeteners have the potential to damage the liver as they pass undigested through the small intestine where they head directly to the liver.

Hydrogenated fats and high fructose syrup deserve special attention due to their universal use and terrible consequences. Luckily for us, awareness of these threats is growing and the use of high fructose corn syrup may one day be curtailed as that of trans-fats has.

But our supermarkets remain stacked high with countless other “Frankenstein foods”. These include processed “cheese”, meat from animals treated with growth hormones and other chemicals, fake salt substitutes, dairy substitutes and many more. Basically, they include any foods that have been chemically or mechanically created, enhanced, improved, or made “safer”.

Not all of these “foods" are harmful but neither are they needed. People with high blood pressure, especially, should avoid them whenever possible. Research shows that a balanced diet rich in whole, natural foods and low in processed foods is the best for a healthy heart and blood pressure.

Click here to discover a totally natural way to lower blood pressure that can work great alongside lifestyle changes... or even regardless of them!