How Beans can Lower Your Cholesterol

Its active ingredient for this process is simply the large content of soluble fiber beans contain, and the process is the removal of bile through stool, which in turn causes our body to produce replacement bile and it makes this new bile from cholesterol. This simple food is also a great source of plant-based protein!

Beans supply a lot of soluble fiber, soluble fiber has a natural way of lowering cholsterol

The difference between soluble fiber and insoluble fiber is: soluble fiber is or becomes a jelly like substance and slows absorption of fats and sugars. Insoluble fiber stays fibrous and helps keep things moving through our digestive tract and helps keep old food debris from getting stuck in our colon walls.

How soluble fiber works: soluble fiber becomes a gel like product that slows down absorption of fats and sugars in our digestive track, (this is why sugar from fruits is absorbed more slowly than factory processed sugar products). Our gallbladder sprinkles bile over fatty foods we eat to help break fat. The soluble fiber makes so it’s not as easy for our body to reabsorb the bile back up to the liver (from our digestive track) and then back out to the gallbladders storage tank. When we lose bile through our stool it forces the liver to have to make new bile salts and the main ingredient that our liver uses to form new bile salts is CHOLESTEROL.

If we can mix in more foods rich in soluble fiber (especially when eating fatty foods) and lower our intake of starches and sugars (other than the sugars from fruits) we should have an effective cholesterol lowering diet.

List of foods rich in soluble fiber: kidney beans, black beans, navy beans, oats, apples, bananas, prunes, citrus fruits, Brussels sprouts, green leafy vegetables, sweet potatoes. When in doubt, add in some BeneFiber or Metamucil with your meals. This is pretty much tasteless soluble fiber so it can be mixed into low fiber foods or water and is a good way to help increase our soluble fiber intake. Other good add-ins are: almonds, walnuts, pistachios, ground flaxseed, and Extra Virgin Olive Oil (for cardiovascular protection).

Benefits of a cholesterol lowering diet: helps control cholesterol, lower the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, obesity, hemorrhoids, colon cancer, constipation and irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) etc., all without the side effects of statin drugs.

Statins are one of the most prescribed drug classes in history and can serve a useful purpose, but if we would look at statins and other awesome modern medicine as a temporary intervention instead of a long-term solution these medicines would serve their purpose much better.

In keeping with Hippocrates’ famous saying, “Let thy food be thy medicine and let thy medicine be thy food” we need to increase our soluble fiber intake to help lower or keep our cholesterol in check or we will very possibly become a future statin drug customer.