Heart Health Begins In Your Grocery Cart

How would you like a well-known cardiologist to go grocery shopping with you to make sure the choices you are making are good for your heart?
Dr. Michael Ozner accompanied NBC 6's Diana Gonzalez and shopper Amy Baxter to Publix.
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"This is where it's all happening in the fresh vegetables and fruit aisle," said Ozner, who is author of "The Miami Mediterranean Diet."

Baxter, who was shopping for her family, picked up some tacos.
"I think the soft tacos are better than the fried shells correct?" she asked.
"Look at the nutritional label and you can see right away that this has trans fats and I would avoid anything with trans fats," Ozner said.
Baxter ordered a half-pound of roast beef in the deli section.
"There's nothing wrong with having a lean cut of roast beef once in a while," Ozner said. "I would limit the amount of red meat your family eats."

Next, Baxter picked up a soy-based drink.
"This has soy in it so I feel if I'm not having enough protein (this is good)," Baxter said.

"Be careful of the calories," Ozner said. "A lot of these drinks are loaded with calories. That's 320 calories."
Next on Baxter's list -- soup.
"I'll pick some miso soup up. Just add water. These are great," she said.

"One of the things about soup is you should always look at the amount of sodium," Ozner said. "This has almost 700 milligrams of sodium. We should strive to limit our sodium consumption to 2,000 milligrams a day or less."

Baxter picked up a Zone bar for a snack.
"I notice that this has a significant amount of saturated fat," Ozner said. "(For a snack) have a handful of almonds with water. That will fill you up."

Baxter's next item -- Kashi cereal bars.

"You mentioned nuts. These are great. It's got almonds, cranberries. It's a cereal bar," Baxter said.
"For food on the go, these are good choices," Ozner said. "There are no saturated fats to speak of. No trans fats. No cholesterol and it's rich in fiber."

For chips, Baxter chose baked Tostitos.

"Half the fat and you still get the yummy crunch," she said.
"Actually, I think this is a better choice than a lot of the other types of chips," Ozner agreed.

Baxter said she buys frozen pizza because her daughter loves it.
"Fat. A lot of fat," Ozner said. "I would rather see you take pita bread and toast it and then take some tomato sauce and some low fat mozzarella."

How about Haagen Dazs ice cream for dessert?
"You're not going to like this one either but it has almonds, protein," Baxter said jokingly.

"As you can see, it has 6 grams of saturated aft per serving," Ozner said. "So instead, consider a fruit sorbet.
Ozner advises these six things should be in your grocery cart for heart health:

* Vegetables and Fruits (wide variety of different colors to get all vitamins)
* Nuts (almonds and walnuts)
* Fish (cold water, salmon)
* Whole Grain (whole grain bread or cereal)
* Olive or Canola oil
* Ground Cinnamon

source:www.nbc6.net