9 Foods That Lower Blood Pressure
Blood Pressure Lowering Foods
to the Rescue!
Eating foods that lower blood pressure is one of the healthiest, cheapest treatments for hypertension.
It can have positive impacts on your overall health as well! Here are the top nine foods that reduce blood pressure.
Bananas
The natural potassium found in bananas encourages your body to push out sodium that may force your blood pressure to rise. The lack of potassium could encourage storage of sodium which causes bloating as well as hypertension. That is why doctors are now recommending that patients eat as many as five bananas daily to bring their blood pressure down. There have actually been studies that prove consumption of five or more bananas daily can be as potent as prescription hypertension medications.
To make it even easier to incorporate bananas in your diet, try one of our healthy muffin recipes that includes bananas.
Beans
Both fiber and magnesium are essential to controlling blood pressure and they both happen to be plentiful in all varieties of beans. Enjoy red beans and rice for dinner or bean burritos for lunch. You will not only cut down on calories and cleanse your body, but you will help control your blood pressure naturally as well.
Try this healthy bean soup recipe as an easy way of getting some beans in your diet.
Brazil Nuts
You can get even more magnesium by crunching on brazil nuts and many other nuts and seeds for snacks. Try putting a variety of seeds and nuts on your salad or mixing them into a healthy trail mix for snacks.
Celery
There are three great reasons to start consuming celery stalks for snacks or juicing them up for delicious and nutritious treats and being one of the top foods that lower blood pressure is just one of them! First, celery acts as a natural diuretic that avoids inflammation inside the body. Second, it relaxes muscles inside the body that automatically regulate blood pressure. Third, blood circulation throughout the body is improved when you consume the oils inside celery stalks.
One of the most delicious was to incorporate celery into your diet is healthy homemade soup recipes - almost all of these recipes have celery in them and you could add extra celery for an added health kick.
Dark Chocolate
You don't want to go overboard and start gaining weight with chocolate, but rich, dark chocolate can provide powerful antioxidants that reduce blood pressure naturally and help your body in many other ways. Stick with about a half ounce daily and you will reap all the benefits of delicious chocolate as one of the foods that lower blood pressure.
Garlic
Allicin is the active part of garlic and there have been studies that show it could have a positive effect on blood pressure.
Potatoes
Potatoes are loaded with potassium as well so enjoy them on a regular basis! Both white and sweet potatoes count as foods that lower blood pressure. Try some of our yummy healthy potato recipes for a potato kick start!
Spinach
You can also get magnesium from green leafy vegetables like spinach. These vegetables also have a variety of other minerals and vitamins that will do your body good! Plus, they are very low calorie and will help you control your weight, which is another factor in natural hypertension control.
Whole Grains
According to a study by the University of Aberdeen, eating three servings of whole grains per day can lower your blood pressure naturally the equivalent amount as would be expected by blood pressure reducing medication!
Notice that there are some common ingredients in these foods that lower blood pressure which do the muscle work of reducing hypertension:
- Potassium
- Magnesium
- Fiber
What Foods Should You Avoid?
It's one thing to start consuming foods that lower blood pressure, but you can take it one step further by also eliminating foods that could be contributing to your high blood pressure. The maximum results will come from a combination of increased foods that fight hypertension and a decrease in foods that contribute to hypertension.
Here is a quick rundown of foods that may be contributing to your problem with hypertension. Which ones do you think you could live without? Which ones could at least be limited to holidays or special occasions only? Every little effort helps.
- Greasy Foods
- Hot Dogs/Sausage
- Lunch meats
- Instant Processed Meals
- Pork
- Smoked fish
- High-Salt Condiments
- Cheese
- Potato Chips
- Buttermilk
- All Canned Soups
- Any foods Containing monosodium glutamate (MSG)
- Pickles
- Sugar
- Soy
Notice what almost all of these foods to avoid have in common: salt! Salt is the worst thing you can consume if you have a problem with hypertension, so be very aware of foods that may increase a lot of sodium. Note that even soups and other pre-packaged meals that are labelled "low sodium" will likely be too high in sodium for consumption on a hypertension diet.
If you want to overcome hypertension and avoid health complications, stay away from salt and sugar!
DASH Diet Information
The DASH diet was developed as an easy, delicious way to remedy and control hypertension. DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension and that name tells you exactly what this eating plan was designed to do. The New England Journal of Medicine reported in January of 2001 that patients on the DASH diet actually could overcome their problems with high blood pressure.
When you control the foods you feed your body you can control many aspects of your health, your blood pressure included. This is something you have complete control over and which could make the difference between a long, healthy life and a very short, unfulfilled life. Be sure to incorporate these foods that lower blood pressure into your diet to improve your health!
