Cardiac College promotes the importance of healthy eating for cardiac and overall health. (Photo: Jonathan Pincas, Flickr)
Barbecue season is in full swing and there's no better way to enjoy your meals than with easy, heart-healthy recipes.
Cardiac College has launched a series of
recent YouTube videos containing recipes for healthy and flavourful meals. Loaded with cooking instructions and tips, the videos provide various salad, dip and entree recipes that'll keep you satisfied.
"What we eat has a profound effect on the risk of heart disease and control of risk factors such as blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes," explains Dr. Paul Oh, medical director of the Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation Program at Toronto Rehab.
Hit play for salad recipes
The Low Sodium Beet Salad recipe features fresh beets, greens, oranges and home-made salad dressing. (Credit: Cardiac College YouTube)
The Mediterranean Green Bean Salad ,made with green beans and sliced almonds, embodies the many health benefits of a Mediterranean diet that consists mainly of olive oil, fish, nuts, vegetables and fruits.
(Credit: Cardiac College YouTube)
The benefits of colourful meals
These healthy and easy recipes aren't limited to salads. Other recipes in Cardiac College's videos include:
Studies show that following a Mediterranean style of eating can reduce risk factors linked to your heart such as, high blood pressure, Type 2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome by 30 per cent.
(Credit: Cardiac College YouTube)
Keeping the heart happy
Toronto Rehab’s Cardiac College provides access to multimedia education curriculum through electronic formats. The program will soon also be available through 22 e-learning modules that provide exercise tips, education and counselling tailored to the patient’s medical needs.
“These e-learning modules will be an especially useful resource for patients at a distance participating in our cardiac rehab program,” says Dr. Oh.
The 13 videos on Cardiac College’s YouTube channel focus specifically on the healthy eating component of cardiac health. Informative, short and available to the general public, these videos are an easily accessible resource for healthy recipes. These were made possible through a generous donation from Longo’s.
Cardiac College’s goal is to improve patient and family education on cardiac health. Cardiac rehabilitation aims to prevent heart events in patients who have already experienced one and to reduce the likelihood of heart events in those who are at a high risk.
“The Cardiac College is a unique and highly collaborative patient education platform that was developed by specialists in patient and family education,” explains Dr. Oh. “Evaluations of the program have demonstrated that participants significantly gain knowledge, make positive changes in behaviour, and achieve improved clinical outcomes through this program.”
