Incorporating whole grains into your diet is a step in the right direction for improving your heart health and increasing your daily fiber intake. Whole grains are a good source of dietary fiber, which, combined with other healthy diet choices, can help reduce cholesterol levels. It may also lower your risk of heart disease.
You might also notice that snacking on fiber-rich foods like whole grains can cause you to feel full faster. That’s because high-fiber foods take longer to digest in your body. A stomach that feels fuller means you’re likely to eat less. Some common whole grains include:
- Oatmeal
- Brown rice
- Quinoa
- Popcorn
One easy way to incorporate whole grains into your diet is to use whole-wheat flour. Whole-wheat flour is flour that contains the entire wheat grain. It’s different than wheat flour, which contains refined grains and is usually enriched with vitamins. In most recipes, you can substitute whole-wheat flour for half of the amount of white flour.
The upcoming holiday baking season is the perfect time to start using whole-wheat flour in your recipes. Here are three recipes to start you off:
Chocolate Mint Snowball Cookies
Source: The American Heart Association