Monday, September 22, 2008

Who knew?

Last spring when I went to my semi-annual cardiological exam, it was preceded, as always, by going to a lab and having blood drawn so that a number of things could be checked. My cardiologist told me that my cholesterol had dropped significantly. “Whatever you're doing,” he said, “keep doing it.”

I didn’t have a clue about what I was doing differently from previous time periods. My wife put her finger on it a couple of days later.

Around the first of the year Mrs. Rhymeswithplague had had an artificial knee installed, and the strong pain medication she took for a while -- sometimes several times a day -- needed to be taken with food. Needless to say, a big weight gain was not what she wanted. So I spread peanut butter on one-half slice of multigrain bread, and she ate that with the medicine, during the day and in the middle of the night as well. To keep her company, I would eat the other half-slice of bread with peanut butter on it.

That is the only dietary change we had made. And goodness knows I was not getting a great amount of exercise. A few weeks after my cardiological exam, I read in a magazine that peanut butter is a natural lowerer of cholesterol.

So if you’re having high-cholesterol problems, you might try that, silly as it seems. It worked for us. According to the magazine, it doesn’t matter whether you use creamy or chunky.

We have continued to eat a breakfast of peanut butter and sugar-free jelly or preserves on multigrain bread, with hot, decaffeinated green tea, two or three times a week, even after my wife no longer needed to take the pain medication.

3 comments:

  1. Well that is a great idea....I love peanut butter. I am going to tell the farmer who has a watch on his high cholesterol and wants to control it with diet. I also know that oatmeal (the best is steel cut) lowers cholesterol as well. Farmer isn't in to oatmeal but I love it. Thanks for a great tip and congratulations on the lowering of one of the evils of health problems.

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  2. Oh goodie. I love peanut butter and eat it most every day for breakfast. I must have super good cholesterol. LOL. Thanks Bob, good postie.

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  3. Vonda and Sherry, thanks for commenting! So far I have resisted the urge to blog about jelly.

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