[b]Healthy Diet: Keeping you Hale and Hearty

When major food manufacturers introduce new, specially engineered product lines, their message may be: Eat our cereals, pastas, and even cookies and potato chips as part of your healthful diet.

These new products, enhanced with natural ingredients, are being called "functional foods." Functional foods may provide specific health benefits beyond basic nutrition when consumed as part of a varied diet. Many of the first functional foods to hit the shelves will tout the ability to lower cholesterol, a major contributing factor in cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in many countries.

However, you don't need to wait until functional foods reach supermarket shelves to make your diet more heart-healthy. The idea of functional foods came, in part, from understanding which components in natural foods help lower cholesterol, such as soluble fiber, soy protein and plant sterols. A careful review of what's already in your kitchen may reveal a ready cholesterol-fighting menu.

Natural foods
Natural foods fight cholesterol in a number of ways. Although dietary supplements are available for many of these natural substances, they are generally not as effective as the real thing.
Consider increasing your intake of foods containing the following cholesterol-lowering components:

Soluble fiber
We've all heard the phrase, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away." But did you know that adage also holds true for lentils? Apples and lentils are both rich in soluble fiber, which regulates your body's production and elimination of cholesterol. Other good sources of soluble fiber include dried beans, peas, barley, citrus fruits, carrots and oats. Products containing lots of rolled oats and oat bran were the first to receive approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to boast on their labels that they may reduce the risk of heart disease when combined with a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol. However, in order to reap the cholesterol-lowering benefits of oats, you must eat a sizable portion