5 Cooking Habits to Reduce Your Hypertension

Diet plays a role in high blood pressure, particularly the consumption of unhealthy foods and above all, salt. What you eat goes a long way in either raising your blood pressure or maintaining a healthy level. But before you consume food, you need to pick what you are going to eat, prepare it, and cook it.

You may not realize it, but all areas of preparing a meal play a role in your blood pressure from when you make your grocery list to plating your meal.

Here are five cooking tips that can help you reduce your blood pressure naturally.

5 Cooking Tips to Help Reduce Your Blood Pressure

1. Cooking method: How you cook your food can play a role in your blood pressure levels. For example, to maintain the most amount of nutrients in vegetables, boiling is the best cooking method. Frying is the least-healthiest cooking method as it makes food fattier.

2. Grocery shopping: When choosing the right groceries, avoid foods that come with their own sauces. These packaged sauces tend to be high in sugar and salt, which are detrimental to your blood pressure. Also, choose foods you can season yourself to moderate how much salt is added to the dish.

3. Eating: When eating, it’s important to consume a variety of vegetables with your meal to take in a range of different nutrients that can work to reduce your blood pressure.

4. Storing food: The longer fresh vegetables are stored, the more nutrients they will lose as the days pass. Fresh vegetables should be consumed as soon as possible. If you are worried they will go bad or you can’t consume them in time, then opt for frozen vegetables.

5. Preparing food: During your preparation for a meal, you may find you are left with half an onion or lemon. Rather than leaving these remaining foods out in the open air, ensure they are covered and chilled. Also, avoid soaking them as this causes them to lose their nutrients as well.

Related: Cooking oils compared: Which to use or avoid for health benefits