Some good ones to check out are Great Good Food by Jane Brody, Healthy Homestyle Cooking and More Healthy Homestyle Cooking by Evelyn Tribole, Weight Watchers has some good ones, if you like ethnic foods one in particular I like is Take Out Tonight by WW, and Cooking Light has an annual cookbook each year that is generally very good. Various organizations also put out cookbooks, like the American Heart Association, etc. I would check a few out from your library and see which ones appeal to you most before purchasing one.

169 does seem extreme for LDL. Usually, they want that under 100.

Lori already named the sources I would have named: AHA cookbooks, WW and Cooking Light. Another thing you cuold do is journal his eating habits for a couple of weeks (no cheating) and have a nutritionist evaluate and make suggestions.

While you're at the library, you might want to check out the Mayo Clinic guide to cholesterol. I don't remember the exact name, but if you seach Mayo Clinic, you should find it pretty easily. My FIL found it helpful, and I know it's been updated several times since he used it. He was one of those people his doctor called "cholesterol factories" -- the whole family seemed genetically disposed to high numbers. The one thing he found that really brough his numbers down and flipped his LDL/HDL ratios was an hour of exercise (walking and swimming) each day.

trsinc - Here's an old but good cook book, packed with nutritional information as well as recipes and colour photos of some dishes:
"Low-Fat Cooking for Good Health" by Gloria Rose 1993.
Here on the Amazon link you can have a look inside the book as well, so you can read the table of contents. I like the format of this book. It's a large (9" x 6") softcover book.
It's nicely laid out and has so much information in easy to follow charts.

Another good cookbook which chooses foods low on the glycemic index to reduce your cholesterol, blood pressure and weight is "Rick Gallop's GI Diet Green-Light Cookbook" which I have used successfully for weight loss. There are some really tasty recipes in this book which are based on low fat, salt and sugar content. Recipes with colour photos and menu plans.

Another one recommended by the American Heart Association for lowering blood pressure and cholesterol is "The Dash Diet" which is full of recipes and advice. The small pocketbook format without a single photo is not inspiring but it's full of good advice.

Tip: You can serve garlic mashed cauliflower instead of potato and it makes a pretty good substitute as it fills that "potato corner" of your plate.
It sounds like you are already following a good diet. Are you sure hubby isn't eating more than he should at work? ;-)

My strongest recommendation would be for the first book I mentioned here.

SharonCb

Sharon beat me to the DASH diet suggestion. I also like Jane Brody, and have one of her old cookbooks, The Good Food Gourmet. Also look for books by Walter Willet. I don't know if he has a cookbook out, but he has some excellent books on nutrition. He is the Dean (I think) of the school of nutrition at Harvard.

A couple of other things to consider, if at all possible, are the source of your foods and exercise. If you have access to pasture raised eggs and beef, it would be wise to switch to them, even though they will be more expensive to purchase. They are lower in cholesterol than factory farmed animal products.

If you are not already, make time to do some exercise at least 5 days a week. Walking, bicycling, swimming, playing tennis, whatever suits your hubby's fancy. You both will be surprised at how adding exercise will lower the blood pressure and cholesterol numbers, especially since it sounds like you eat a fairly healthy diet.

Sally

Here is a link that might be useful: Eat Drink and Be Healthy

I have a couple of the Cooking Light cookbooks and I like them. Also check out diabetic cooking books, they have a lot of low fat and low carb selections.

I'm looking at Ellie Krieger's cookbook too, I like several of her recipes.

So, cutting out carbs means REFINED carbs, right? Not the good carbs in vegetables like carrots and squash? Potatoes and corn in moderation, of course.

Plus, studies have found that even people with high cholesterol levels can eat an egg a day without affecting cholesterol levels or their possibility of heart disease. If you get free range eggs from a local farmer they are lower in saturated fat and higher in Omega 3s.

Sour cream is OK in the lower fat versions, as is cream cheese but many of the low fat cheeses are awful. Watch commercial beef too, very well marbled and tender and horribly high in saturated fat, which promptly raises the cholesterol level. Grass fed is better, along with bison or venison. Watch chicken too, ground chicken and turkey is often ground from the skin and dark meat and is as high in saturated fat as ground beef.

I've been working on this for a couple of years, the doc just put me on blood pressure meds and switched my cholesterol medication. On a maximum dose of Lipitor my total cholesterol was still 259, the bad stuff was 151. Hey, my triglycerides were good, though, and my total started at 510!!! Yes, it's a family genetic issue. (sigh)

At any rate, the trick is whole grains, lean meats, low fat dairy and lots of fruits and vegetables.

Somehow I got TWO of the Rodale Press Diabetic cooking Cookbooks, send me an email and I'd be glad to send you one of them, if you like. If not, I'll "auction" it off to members in general as a white elephant...

Annie

Thank you thank you, everyone!!

Annie, I'm sending you an email. We can do a trade if you want. I have two of the 2006 Ball Complete Book of Home Preserving. I bought one and hubby bought the other as a gift for me, not knowing I already had one, lol.

Well, I've got lots of books to look up now. Thanks for all the advice everybody. I'm trying to convince myself that this is a good reason to buy lots of fresh fish at the oober expensive fish market.

trsinc....
Buy frozen fish. You can save a lot of money buying frozen over fresh and if it was frozen on a factory ship on the high seas as soon as it was pulled from the water it could be even 'fresher' than fresh fish from the market, unless you know your fish monger and are sure it was caught within 24 hours.
Freezing also kills anything else which might be in the flesh. (Sorry but I had to say it.) ;-)

SharonCb

I cook with Weight Watchers cook books all of the time....even serve their recipes for "company" dinners. Their food is "current", healthy, and tastes very, very good. I think you'll be pleasantly amazed. You'll need to check out the WW website to find out what cookbooks they are offering now. I must have 8 of their books, and cook from them nearly every day.

trsinc, the doctors are "pushing" the cholesterol medicine. Good old Katie Couric even had a special regarding the 'kick-backs' the docs get from the pharaceutical companys to sign up as many people as possible for these drugs.

I have the 'Low-Fat Cooking For Good Health' also and agree that it is a good book.

Have your husband eat a lot of vegetables cooked with olive oil, preferrably the cruciferous ones. Then in 3-6 months go back for the tests and make certain they give you a copy of the tests.

Another good source of health info that I've mentioned before is Dr. Blaylock's Wellness Reports. Yes, he has a fee for joining, but it's small and well worth getting his reports. (And no, he's no relative of mine - but better than any book.)

Remember, we just came out of a high cholesterol season!

I agree that we are coming out of high cholesterol season!! This year was particularly bad. Not the best time for him to be testing, I know. But, it won't hurt us to try and be even more healthy.

I don't know anything about docs pushing the meds, but I do think they fall into a pattern of just regurgitating generic info for all kinds of problems. Hubby decided to call them back on Monday and ask if he can try diet and exercise before going on the meds. He has a slight problem with exercise as his knees hurt him all the time. Doc says arthritis but has done no testing. Just prescribed meds to see if they help, which they do, but she says to not take them all the time... sigh. Poor hubby. :-( He's only 44!

Thanks again for all the advice, everyone. I've been looking up the various books. I have a question about Amazon if anyone sees this. I've ordered books and things from them direct quite a few times. I've never ordered things from the other sources, through their site, before. Have any of you? For example, I can get the Low Fat Cooking for Good Health fro .45 cents +3.99 shipping from somebody called goodwillny. It looks like it goes through amazon so I have that protection.

Has anyone gone that route before? How comfortable do you feel about it?

trsinc, a couple of years ago my cholesterol shot up and they tried to put me on Lipitor. From what I knew about how bad it is for you (reading Blaylock's report), I told them NO WAY. That's when I started the food done in olive oil. Usually broccoli, brussels sprouts, braised cabbage, wild rice, asparagus - see a green pattern.. Because it would get dull quickly, I'd throw in some carrots and a couple of very small potatoes, but was careful not to do it too often. I gave up my butter and cheese dip to an extent. Otherwise, I ate as usual, like morning bacon biscuits. And NO exercise.

This went for about 3 months. Not even the full 6 months, but at the end of 6 months the cholesterol still had dropped way low - below normal. The doctor completely ignored it. And the best side affect was the weight - it wasn't so much that pounds came off, which they did - but I looked "leaner", almost like being a kid again.

You definitely have to become your own doctor of sorts now days - know everything you can!

Good luck to you and your husband. It can be done!

I'm a perennial lurker here - I love reading you all so I wanted to join in as I feel I can actually contribute something!
I had high-ish cholesterol and bought a book by an American author called "Mediterranean harvest" by Martha Rose Shulman. She cooks vegetarian dishes with a lot less olive oil than the original recipes and is very health conscious; I have lost a lot of bad cholesterol since eating a lot of her food!!! DH is a vegetarian and also loves her book. Also, the recipes are really wonderful. It must be one of my most-used books.
ISBN 1-59486-234-6
I also agree with walking - they say you should do 10 000 steps a day.

I would seriously try exercise (find some kind of carido that isn't hard on the knees, like swimming or the recumbant bike) and start slow, but do it every day. Also, I would NOT go on a no carb diet. To me, it sounds ridiculous to try and lower cholesterol that way since the diet contains cheese, butter and red meat which are loaded with saturated fats. People lower their cholesterol on that diet because they loose weight. But do they keep it off? Cut out refined carbs, ABSOLUTELY. Balance my carbs with protein and lots of vegetables, yes. And seriously lower your sugar intake. I would cut out red meat at the very least. And increase my intake of FIBER, particularly sticky fiber. That means oatmeal for breakfast. And some beans for protein if you can tolerate them. Brown rice and whole wheat pasta, barley, cracked wheat, whole germ corn meal, etc. Sweet potatoes and potatoes but without BUTTER. I do a big roast of root vegetables on Sundays, in olive oil. Eat lots and lots of vegetables. Try that. I'm not saying go without meds., but try diet and exercise first. Sugar and refined carbs are hard to aviod, but it can be done, but by bit. Take an evening "constitutional" walk with hubs. Good for body and soul. Good luck. I get a lot of recipe ideas online, from SparksPeople, (http://www.sparkpeople.com), FoodNetwork Ellie Kreiger and then also George Stella who does low carb recipes, and Weight Watchers, (http://www.weightwatchers.com/food/index.aspx).

I forgot to mention that the nice thing about Weight Watchers, Ellie Kreiger and SparksPeople, is that you can sign up for personalized weekly menus, which I imagine could help you make the big switch quickly.

Here is a link that might be useful: HealthyLiving with Ellie Web site for personalized meal plan

Oh geez, I didn't read all of your posts. Sounds like you are into the typical American diet plan, which is meat, a veggie side and a starch side. A great way to ease into healthy stuff is start making really cool salads and begin your meal with a salad. Check out the coleslaw thread for starters. Lots of low salt recipes there. OR alternately, begin your meal with soup, that includes lots of veggies and some beans and/or rice or barley or bulghur. Add some wheat berry, farro, barley or rice pilaf's in place of potatoes. And start making some meat dishes that also are heavy on the veggies, such as chicken cacciatore and stir fries. Get in the habit of eating whole grain cereal for breakfast. Try out soy milk, which has no saturated fat. Cheese is the hardest thing to give up for me. I love cheese. I try and discipline myself to just eat it once a day. But I'm vegetarian so it is about the only thing besides eggs and butter that I eat that has saturated fat. Luckily I don't eat much butter. Sugar ties with cheese as being hard to give up. You've got to stop the soda if that is one of the things you drink, that is notorious for sugar. My dad guzzles fruit juice, which although it may have some vitamins and doesn't interfere with calcium absorption, it is still just as bad as soda when it comes to sugar content.

Thanks again, everyone for all the tips and info.

I just can't have supper without carbs like bread or potatoes. Canarybird, the cauliflouwer idea is a good one!! We can do that a couple of times a week... So, I've devised a plan. Please tell me what you think.

I've been reading about bean and seed flours. I toodled around the city over the weekend holiday and picked up some Urid flour (made from black lentils that have been split) and some chickpea flour. I have a couple of Indian cookbooks that use different flours for flat breads. And I've also found out about Socca and Farinata which are both flat breads/crepes that use chickpea flour.

Whatcha think? Doesn't this sound like a really healthy alternative? All the info out there gets to be confusing after a while. I really do not understand why it's ok to have whole grains and not refined. About the only refined thing we eat is white rice. I make our bread and it does have some white flour in it, can't really get around that, but also has whole wheat, rye, etc.

Hubby is so fixated on this. He's starting to get on my nerves, lol. It's not like we were eating high fat/sodium/preservatives, before!

So, I ordered a book that Grainlady suggested on another thread called Country Beans. I also ordered Low Fat Cooking for Good Health, and one of the AHA cook books. I suspect I'll just cook from the AHA one for a while because he keeps talking about how the AHA says this and the AHA says that. :-) I think this has really freaked him out.

I'm planning to order a couple more things in the coming months after we give these a run through.

Thanks again, everyone for helping.

And, islay, don't be a stranger!! Chime in any time you want.

Try Fat Free, Flavor Full by Dr. Gabe Mirkin. It's available at Amazon. I used to use it years ago and it was pretty good.

Here's what the American Heart Association says about fiber:

Dietary Fiber

Dietary fiber is the term for several materials that make up the parts of plants your body can't digest. Fiber is classified as soluble or insoluble.

When eaten regularly as part of a diet low in saturated fat, trans fat and cholesterol, soluble fiber has been associated with increased diet quality and decreased risk of cardiovascular disease. Soluble or viscous fibers modestly reduce LDL ("bad") cholesterol beyond levels achieved by a diet low in saturated and trans fats and cholesterol alone. Oats have the highest proportion of soluble fiber of any grain. Foods high in soluble fiber include oat bran, oatmeal, beans, peas, rice bran, barley, citrus fruits, strawberries and apple pulp.

Insoluble fiber has been associated with decreased cardiovascular risk and slower progression of cardiovascular disease in high-risk individuals. Dietary fiber can make you feel full, so you may eat fewer calories. Foods high in insoluble fiber include whole-wheat breads, wheat cereals, wheat bran, rye, rice, barley, most other grains, cabbage, beets, carrots, Brussels sprouts, turnips, cauliflower and apple skin.

Many commercial oat bran and wheat bran products (muffins, chips, waffles) contain very little bran. They also may be high in sodium, total fat and saturated fat. Read labels carefully.

That's why I wouldn't stress as much about "no carbs" as I would look at an overall plan that includes low in saturated fat, trans fats, and cholesterol and higher in fiber. Those "no carb" diets are fads and people only lower their cholesterol because they loose weight fast, but I doubt most keep it off. And the diet allows a lot of saturated fat and salt, which is why I wouldn't follow it to a "T" although I would get some ideas from it beause people eat WAY too many empty carbs. But bear in mind that any refined flour products are going to be high carb, but the biggest thing that zooms up your "carb" ratings on things is SUGAR, another no no that is hard to avoid if you are fighting heart disease. We are bombarded daily by foods that contain the lethal mix of trans fats or saturated fat, high sugar and high salt. I ate two chocolate ones for breakfast this morning, lol! If your hubby is like my dad, it's not the good meals that you put on the table that are probably doing him in. Sounds like he wants a quick fix. Better to make gradual healthy changes to the way you cook to include more low carb, high fiber vegetables and healthy snacks. This is a constant battle I know. And I also know that you have to negotiate this with hubby too!

Good luck, I know you have LOTS of company in your struggle here on the board! This kind of low balanced carb, high fiber diet is good for fighting diabetes too. And a lot of other chronic diseases. It's too bad that your husband isn't getting good diet advice from his physician, who should be paying attention to this too and not JUST prescribing pills. But I know that's the way most doctors do it. LOTS of really great stuff on the American Heart Association's Web site. Search "low carb" and you'll find some cautions. Low carb is fine if you include fiber and whole grains which have lots of B vitamins which are also good for the heart and blood.

Here is a link that might be useful: American Heart Association Food and Nutrition

At least 80% of the cookbooks that I purchase are health-oriented, but I don't have much to add given the good suggestions above. I like everything that I've tried from Ellie Krieger's "the food you crave" cookbook, as does my husband. Eating Well (magazine) has really good recipes too, although they tend to be a little more 'exotic' than Cooking Light. I have tried a few recipes from Eating Well's cookbook titled "comfort food made healthy" that I liked, and the recipes are more traditional.

I totally agree with lpinkmoutain about carbs. Try limiting white flour & sugar, but eating 'good' carbs like fruit, vegetables, and whole grains. Cook with more brown and wild rice & whole wheat pasta instead of refined grains like white rice and white pasta. If the taste or texture of brown rice and whole grain pasta do not appeal to you, try different brands/types or add other seasonings. I think those changes will help your DH without totally changing your diet and giving up 'carbs.'

I agree, Robin, I'm one of those "odd" people who actually like whole wheat bread and pasta better than the white stuff and I'd much rather have brown rice, it has some texture. I even use it in sushi.

The trick is to not get too "fixated", like it sounds your husband is becoming. There are some easy swaps, like blueberry crisp with an oatmeal topping instead of blueberry pie with white flour and lard pastry. Oatmeal with cinnamon instead of a cinnamon roll, whole wheat toast instead of white. Be sure you keep the "skins" on things like potatoes and apples as much as possible, they add that all important fiber.

Baby steps and little changes, it'll all add to big benefits without giving up everything. Oh, and watch those commercial crackers, salad dressings, etc, they can have a lot of saturated fat hidden in what seems like a very small serving.

Your book is in the mail, I hope you find something good in it!

Annie