Hmmm...reduce cholesterol in cooking

The hubby went in for a physical which included a fasting cholesterol test. The results were a bit high - 236. The problem isn't breakfast - he eats oatmeal with low fat vanilla soymilk and a bananna. Lunch is usually a spinach salad with a little bacon, a little blue cheese, sunflower seeds, carrots, celery, and low fat dressing.

I think the problem is dinner. On the weekends, I make soups in the crockpot and freeze them in individual portions so we can nuke them during the week. The problem is that my bean soup with ham and polska kielbasa isn't low cholesterol, neither is my cream-based potato soup, or my broccoli cheese soup, or my chili with bacon and steak. They are all comfort foods. We also have been known to have cheese and crackers for dinner and I know that the cheeses we eat aren't low in cholesterol.

Please give me some quick, easy ideas for low cholesterol dinners. Also, some tasty soups that are low cholesterol would be nice too. I want my hubby around for a long time.

My husband has been on Lipitor for years, I surprised the doc didn't prescribe a statin drug.
We eat kind of like you.
I try to use the spray oils in the pans instead of adding oil/butter. Draining and grease off meat too. Portion control might help as well as eating fish/chicken more often.

Originally Posted by GailC

My husband has been on Lipitor for years, I surprised the doc didn't prescribe a statin drug.

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That is odd. Doctors make big money pushing the newer statins.

A better question would be is what is his cholesterol ratio? If you can get his good cholesterol up it can help. Also, have him checked to see if there are any sort of inflammatory diseases or anything that can damage vessels. The body's way of healing this damage is to increase cholesterol, so that high reading may be a sign of something more serious that needs to be checked out.

Otherwise - cut out the bacon, use lower fat creams, lean meats (more chicken and fish), and more veggies. I wouldn't worry about cheeses unless the two of you are eating a lot of cheese at a time.

The Dr wants him to have another test in about 3mos. His good cholesterol levels are fantastic - we eat lots of sushi and nuts.

Did he talk to his doctor about what he should do, and tell him/her about his current diet? It sounds like he's doing everything mostly right, and his cholesterol level may just be something that only responds to medication. Everyone on my mom's side of the family has hereditary high cholesterol, including my sister and myself. Now, I eat like crud, so I'm not a good model, but my sister is the ideal body weight, increadibly physically active, and eats very well. And her level is still above 250.

I actually talked about cholesterol with my doctor yesterday, and if I weren't possibly going to have children in the future, I'd be on drugs asap. Alas, I'm only 27 and don't want any potential children to have birth defects, so for now I'm just going to start taking fish oil and cooking healthier.

On that note, I've been doing some research. Allrecipes has a low cholesterol section that has 184 soup recipes

http://allrecipes.com/Recipes/Health...?WithTerm=soup

My good cholesterol is so high that even though my overall cholesterol is high, the doctor is not too worried about it.

Does DH exercise? That is one of the reasons that my good cholesterol is so high.

I would look for recipes that list the cholesterol at the end. A good place to start is Cooking Light magazine. Not only are the recipes lightened up, they always list fat, cholesterol, sodium, etc.