Surprising Heart-Healthy Food

Drumstick

Alan Aragon M.S., a California-based nutritionist says “The extra fat in dark turkey or chicken meat raises your levels of cholecystokinin (CCK), a hormone that makes you feel fuller, longer,”. The benefit: You'll be less likely to overeat in the hours that follow your meal. What about your cholesterol? Only a third of the fat in a turkey drumstick is the saturated kind. (The other two-thirds are heart-healthy unsaturated fats.) What's more, 86 percent of that saturated fat either has no impact on cholesterol, or raises HDL (“good”) cholesterol more than LDL (“bad”) cholesterol—a result that actually lowers your heart-disease risk.

Ketchup

There are two things you need to know about tomatoes: red are the best, because they’re packed with more of the antioxidant lycopene; and processed tomatoes are just as potent as fresh ones, because it’s easier for the body to absorb the lycopene. Studies show that a diet rich in lycopene can decrease your risk of coronary artery disease. It took people just one glass of tomato juice and 2 tablespoons of ketchup every day for 3 weeks to cut LDL cholesterol levels by an average of 8.5 percent, according to a study in the British Journal of Nutrition.