Healthy Heart Indian Salads, Raita Recipes

Healthy heart salads. Salads and raitas are a delicious way to reach your low-cal goals without compromising on nutrients, as these recipes are devoid of high-fat dressings and have been made using heart friendly ingredients. All these recipes are made with minimal or no oil, and use low-fat curds and fibre-rich veggies, fruits and sprouts to keep your heart protected. Best of all, they are so scrumptious and tasty, they are sure to steal your heart….

Grapefruit and Green Apple Salad

Healthy Heart Indian Salads, Fruit Salads

Make your salads healthier and satiating by adding ingredients like bulgur wheat, bajra, jowar etc, adding these ingredients will make your meal low glycemic index and fibre rich. Therefore, making it a good option for heart support.

My favourite healthy heart Indian salad is cabbage, carrot and lettuce salad which is made with zero honey and has fibre rich vegetables.

Cabbage, Carrot and Lettuce Salad

A light salad loaded with vitamin A from carrot and mint together with protein-rich rajma too, the Carrot, Cucumber, Rajma Salad in Mint Dressing is a treat to your taste buds and eyes, in more ways than one.

Rajma Cucumber and Carrot Salad

Try making Orange Tabbouleh it’s got a tangy-orangy taste and is also quite nourishing. Give a boost of antioxidants to your body with this Muskmelon Pear and Apple Salad along with giving vitamin A and probiotics too, as it’s got curd, a wonderful recipe for maintaining heart health. Ever though you could make an iron rich salad? Here’s a recipe of Citrus Watermelon Salad to give a boost of iron to your body. Being rich in vitamin C it also enhances the absorption of iron.

Muskmelon, Pear and Apple Salad

Healthy Heart Salads, Vegetable Salads

Are you a fan of Garlic and love the flavour of garlic in almost everything? Then I’m sure you would love this recipe of Garlicky Cabbage and Spinach Salad. Loaded with leafy vegetables, this salad is just right to add bulk to your diet.

Try your hands on this Italian Style Tossed Salad power packed with so many vegetables that make it a nutrient feat for healthy heart. Add beans to your vegetable salads and turn it into a meal if you don’t feel like cooking.

Italian Style Tossed Salad

Rajma Cucumber and Carrot Salad is one such salad recipe that will keep you satiated, provide good amount of Fibre, Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Folic acid, Calcium and Phosphorus, all of which good for better heart health.

Nutritious Vegetable Salad

Healthy Heart Raita Recipes

Raitas are an irreplaceable part of Indian meals. And can be made healthy by avoiding ingredients like boondi and fatty seasonings. One can replace full fat curds with low fat curds to support heart health. Lauki Phudina Raita is a tasty heart friendly recipe that will be loved by all age-groups.

Jamun Raita

Carrot and Beetroot Raita is a great way to add antioxidants to your diet which protect the heart.

You can also add some omega-3 fats to your accompaniment like Flaxseed Raita which helps to build immunity and protect heart health.

Flax Seed Raita ( Omega-3 Fatty Acids and Calcium Rich Recipe )

What causes your heart to not work correctly?

There are 5 basic reasons why we have heart issues.

1. Belly fat : The more belly fat you have, the higher the risk of a heart attack. This shows wrong food habits, bad quality vegetable oil, sugar, maida, cornflour excess etc create this problem. High blood pressure in a major problem for your heart and also uncontrolled diabetes. Your diabetes is not solved by just popping pills.

You need to change the way you eat. Wrong foods eaten lead to the inflammation of the arteries of your heart. Blockages in the arteries Blockages lead to heart attack and that is so easy to fix as simple as eating healthy. Remove inflammation in your body.

Red and Green Salad with Peanut Dressing ( Eat Well Stay Well )

2. Eating processed foods : Avoid junk food and follow simple basic home cooked food. Stay away from refined vegetable oils. Opt for unfrefined oils like olive oil, coconut oil. You could also have cold pressed peanut oil in your cooking as that is available in India.

Also remember to wash your hands before you eat as they can carry infections. Your hands have opened doors, pressed lift buttons etc where others with infection may have touched them before. Thats how a virus can spread.

Pear and Pomegranate Salad ( Soups and Salads Recipe )

3. Always be active and get your exercises in : Yes, want a healthy heart then put in the effort. Even if you have a one hour workout and you are sitting for the next 9 hours, then your one hour workout is almost useless. Inactivity, sedentary lifestyle or sitting too long is the number one cause of inflammation and poor blood circulation in your system. Your heart needs two things, the right nutrients (eating wisely) and oxygen and both these are carried by your blood circulation.

Blood circulation happens with movement. If your are in your office, then try and sit on a stool without a back rest and that will make you use your core and fire up your body. That is why we find new age workers wanting to stand at times the whole day while working at their desk.

Cabbage and Carrot Kachumber, Kobi and Gajar Kachumber

Blood circulation is at its lowest when we are sitting or sedentary. 2 hours of watching TV may reduce heart healthy by 13% to 15% says Harvard study. There is a way to watch TV. Get up from your TV or pause and walk around or even better do some basic exrecises while watching TV.

If you had an active day then nothing will happen by watching TV for 2 hours.

Mixed Veggie Raita

4. Smoking and Stress : The two s's. Common senses is stay away from your puff. Regarding stress, more stress makes more cortisol which creates more inflammation. That swells your arteries over time and leasds to a heart attack. Sort your stress out.

Kidney Bean Salad, Mexican Kidney Bean Salad

5. Lack of sleep : Your body needs 8 hours sleep. Sleep depravation and inflammation are linked with one another. If you are sleep deprived, then you are compromising your heart health. Stress is also a big issue for heart attack. More stress makes more cortisol which creates more inflammation.

Fresh Fruit Raita ( Calcium Rich Recipe )