Food Tips for Healthy Blood Pressure

Food Tips for Healthy Blood Pressure 

Angela Soeon Park, L.Ac., TCM Clinical Nutritionist

If you have high blood pressure or have a family history of high blood pressure, an appropriate diet can help keep it under control. Avoiding alcohol, tobacco, caffeine, heavily spicy foods and cutting down on the amount of fat, salt and calories should be considered first, and remember that highly-processed foods, canned food, frozen foods, snacks, and marinated foods are likely to be high in sodium, fat, and calories. The choices of beverages are important too so if you are a tea drinker, chrysanthemum, green tea or corn silk tea could help, as can fresh juices made with celery, carrots, lemon or apples.

A diet that promotes healthy blood pressure is rich in vegetables, fruits, low-fat dairy, and whole grains. Reducing sodium, even by a small amount, can reduce blood pressure while increasing potassium can decrease the effects of sodium. As an example, foods that are naturally high in potassium include melons, apricots, bananas, and berries. Non-fat dairy is also high in potassium, and so are many tomato products, raw mushrooms, broccoli, carrots, celery, pumpkin, winter squash, and kelp. Black fungus, nuts, and dark leafy greens are on the list and so are scallops, wild salmon, halibut, trout, and Pacific cod, so enjoy!