Give your heart health a boost with mushrooms

It’s World Heart Day on 29 September, which leaves just enough time to add a few mushroom-filled recipes to your diet for better heart health.

In general, heart health is all about positive lifestyle choices that include exercise, lowering stress and managing weight through good dietary habits.

READ MORE | [RECIPE] Magic Marinated Mushroom Burger

Shroomy goodness

Delicious, low-calorie mushrooms are an ideal inclusion in heart-conscious eating plans for their many health and nutritional benefits.

A recent study, reviewed in Phytotherapy Research, concluded that adding edible mushrooms into your diet could help lower your blood pressure levels.

A 2010 research paper by Keith R Martin from the Healthy Lifestyles Research Center, College of Nursing and Health Innovation at Arizona State University, published in Nutrition Journal, found that “dietary mushrooms can be protective against cardiovascular disease (CVD)”.

And mushrooms contain vitamins C and D and potassium, which are associated with good cardiovascular health, as well as a unique heart-healthy type of fibre known as beta-glucans.

Medical News Today notes “there is some evidence that consuming a type of fibre called beta-glucans may lower blood cholesterol levels. [And these] beta-glucans occur in the cell walls of many types of mushrooms.”

The journal also states, “potassium can help regulate blood pressure, and this may decrease the risk of hypertension and cardiovascular disease.”

Information by The South African Mushroom Farmers’ Association