Here's the truth. Only 50% of Americans 20 years and older met ideal criteria for total cholesterol, according to the American Heart Association in 2022.

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What’s more is that 54% of these Americans with high cholesterol are taking medication to try to lower their cholesterol levels.

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I’m here to tell you that it doesn’t have to be this way. 

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In fact, the research has shown that there’s another method to reducing cholesterol as effectively as those meds — but without the common side effects.

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The method? Food.

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Food as Medicine is Proven in Science 

This is not just a statement but comes with real scientific proof.  If only 1.5% of Americans over the age of 20 had ideal criteria on the Healthy Diet Score, then we need to revisit our current approach. As scientists seek to find more ways to beat disease, build immunity, and bring healing to the body, food as medicine has begun to gain more and more attention. Research continues to discover foods with the effectiveness of medicine. 

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Let’s explore foods you can eat to reduce cholesterol as effectively as medication.

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Are you ready?

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One great food is eating beans. Yep, by eating 20 beans at every single meal, you can reduce your cholesterol as effectively as medication.  Before we dive deeper into this solution, let’s start by first understanding cholesterol. 

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What is Cholesterol and How Do We Manage It?

Cholesterol is a waxy substance and it's not inherently bad. In fact, your body needs it to build cells and to make stress hormones and other important hormones in your body. But too much cholesterol can pose a problem. 

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Cholesterol builds in your body in two ways. 

1. First, your liver makes all the cholesterol your body needs. 
2. Second, we get cholesterol from any foods that had a mother. (Think meat and fish) 

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Quick note: Sometimes a product like a jar of peanut butter will say “cholesterol-free”. But since peanuts never had a mother, they never had cholesterol to begin with! This is why it's important to have trusted sources in wellness.

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The problem is that our bodies make all the cholesterol we need, but the foods we are eating add even MORE cholesterol which causes a major build-up within the body. 

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You may not have learned this in your college physiology class, but our body has a natural exit plan for the excess cholesterol in our bodies — whether it’s from cholesterol-rich foods or our liver overproducing cholesterol. We don't need excess cholesterol, so our body works to get rid of it!   

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Now, let’s dive deeper into why we don’t need to depend on medicine to drop our cholesterol.

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How to Reduce Cholesterol Without a Pill  

To lower cholesterol in your body naturally, you need to add more soluble fiber to your plate. Adding soluble fiber to each meal is the only exit plan for removing excess cholesterol from our body.  Soluble fiber can only be found in whole unprocessed plant foods like beans, barley, oats, apples, bananas, pitted fruits like plums, nuts, and seeds like flaxseed, chia seed, and psyllium husks. 

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These are the foods with the power of medicine to lower cholesterol as effectively as a cholesterol-lowering medication.

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Here Are 4 Ways to Reduce Your Cholesterol: 

1. Replace animal saturated fats with plant-based fats 

Animal products such as butter, full-fat dairy products, and even meat contain a lot of saturated fat, which increases cholesterol levels. Replacing butter with plant-based fats such as extra virgin olive oil, olives, avocado, and nuts can be beneficial to reduce cholesterol levels.

2. Replace red meat with more plant protein like nuts and beans

Nuts are a great source of protein and contain unsaturated fats that can help lower cholesterol levels. Eating more plant proteins like nuts and beans and less focus on meat and poultry and full-fat dairy products.

3. Eat foods rich in soluble fiber and omega-3 fats

Foods that are rich in omega-3 fats and soluble fiber can help reduce inflammation and reduce the damage caused by excess cholesterol.  These are unprocessed plant sources of omega-3- rich soluble fiber— foods such as flaxseeds, chia seeds, walnuts, and soy.

4. Limit the intake of dietary cholesterol

While cholesterol is important for the body, we do not need to eat any dietary cholesterol. Dietary cholesterol is found in animal products, such as meat, poultry, eggs, and full-fat dairy products, and limiting the intake of these products can be beneficial in reducing cholesterol levels.

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Stress and Cholesterol

We need stress hormones to cope with life stresses. If you are under high stress, you can expect your cholesterol to run higher than normal. Finding ways to reduce and cope with stress is beneficial for managing cholesterol and your overall health. Eating foods that lower your cholesterol during times of high stress is even more important.

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However,  if we have chronic stress we may find our cholesterol levels staying high. It is important to find daily activities that help you relax and revive and daily activities that bring you joy.

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Whether you’re under chronic stress or simply dealing with high cholesterol, we need to talk about your body’s natural exit plan. 

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The natural exit plan for cholesterol is found in soluble fiber. 

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What is Soluble Fiber?

Soluble fiber reduces the absorption of dietary cholesterol into your bloodstream AND it binds to the bile that is made from cholesterol. Soluble fiber also secretes the bile and blocks it from recycling through your body. 

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Think of soluble fiber like a sponge: It creates a gel-like substance absorbing the cholesterol we eat at each meal. 

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What Foods Have Soluble Fibers?

This is going to give you that soluble fiber that you need so that every single meal is maxed out in the amount of soluble fiber that you can eat that will basically manage cholesterol for you naturally. 

1. Beans (especially kidney beans!)
2. Barley
3. Oats
4. Apples, pears, and pitted fruits like plums and peaches
5. Nuts 
6. Flax seeds, chia seeds, and psyllium seeds

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Here’s what we know: Soluble fibers remove cholesterol from the body, and all dietary fiber helps build healthy gut flora. A healthy gut leads to improved immunity and decreased inflammation and even improves metabolism, allowing the body to use its natural healing powers. Yes, this is food as medicine!

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What that also means, though, is these foods can't be processed because processed foods have taken out the soluble fiber,  insoluble fiber, and resistant starches. And that leads us to the next topic as we talk about fiber and where we get it.

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Soluble Fiber vs. Insoluble Fiber

An insoluble fiber is like the skin on an apple or the skin on a carrot. It adds bulk to the stool, and it's like exercise for the gut, feeding the healthy gut bacteria needed for optimal gut health. It has a very different role than soluble fiber. Both of the fibers are really important  — and are calorie-free carbs that are very good for us. 

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Foods to Avoid When Trying to Lower Cholesterol

Fiber is a calorie-free carbohydrate that is found in whole plant foods. 

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However, processing plant foods removes natural fiber, saying goodbye to all the natural benefits!

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For instance, apple juice is processed by removing the fiber from whole apples. White rice is also processed by removing the bran and germ, which eliminates the fiber. Sugar cane is crushed to produce table sugar, and the fiber is removed. 

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Animal foods like meat, poultry, and fish are also processed foods lacking carbs, fibers, and antioxidants! Here’s why: The animal processes the whole plant foods it eats by burning the carbohydrates for energy, using the fiber to build healthy gut bacteria, using up most of the antioxidants, and excreting the fiber from the whole plant. 

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Then we eat the muscle and the fat from the animal, which doesn’t hold onto those whole plant benefits, the animal took the greatest healing benefits from the plant foods before we eat it! This is why I consider animal foods like meat, poultry, fish, and dairy processed foods.

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The Problem With the American Plate

So here's a major problem. 

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The average American plate is made up of about 90% of these processed foods (with many of them highly processed!)  and only about 10% of whole, unprocessed,  plant foods. But as we've just discussed, whole plant, 100% unprocessed foods are where the greatest healing properties are. 

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My plate vs. the American plate

The Standard American Plate is made up of 90% processed foods and only 10% unprocessed whole plant foods. 

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Here at Dr. Cheryl Wellness, The Plate flips the Standard American Plate designed from 90% or more whole unprocessed foods and less than 10% to 20% max of processed foods or what I call favorite comfort foods.

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These favorite comfort foods might be processed, but they may also bring you great joy. 

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Our focus is on eating more of the foods that have a medicinal effect, while leaving a little room for your favorite comfort foods. 

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Remember: You don't have to become a vegan or vegetarian to be healthy!  This is really about focusing on more unprocessed whole plant foods, whatever your diet is.

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We're not looking at simply finding a name for another diet. We're really focused on food as medicine. In the same way people take pills twice a day to manage their health, we look at eating our three meals a day as our medicine, from birth to our last breath. Our body responds to what we eat and put in it. If we feed our bodies something good for it, the body activates its health defenses. We are focusing on creating a lifestyle, not another diet

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When you sit down for each breakfast, lunch, or dinner, look at how you can fill your plate with the right foods so that you activate these healthy defenses, and heal and protect your body from disease. 

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How to Improve Gut Health with Fiber

Fiber and resistant starches, which are only found in whole plant foods, feed the healthy gut microbes and help them thrive. 

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Eating a large variety of whole plant foods provides a diverse amount of critical nutrients which each feed different healthy gut microbes. 

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That healthy gut bacteria produces compounds that help build a healthy gut lining, with these results:

• Lower inflammation
• Regulating metabolism
• Losing unwanted weight
• Boosting our immune system. 
• Communicate with the brain to produce chemicals that improve our mood 

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If you lack these foods in your daily meals, your healthy gut bacteria are destroyed and all the unhealthy bacteria take over, creating an overall unhealthy gut. 

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And an unhealthy gut leads to increased food allergies and lots of health problems over time. 

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That’s why eating a variety of whole plant foods is the cure for building and maintaining a HEALTHY gut. 

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If the majority of Americans are eating mostly processed foods and only 10% of their diet is whole plant foods, it’s not surprising that so many people are searching for probiotic food supplements and solutions to heal their inflamed gut.

Illnesses Connected to Unhealthy Gut Microbes: 

• Metabolism imbalance leading to weight gain and obesity
• Chronic inflammation
• Type 2 Diabetes
• Hepatic steatosis
• Intestinal bowel disease
• Several types of cancer
• And even depression has been connected to unhealthy gut bacteria

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How to Build a Healthy Gut in Just 7 Days

Did you know that within seven days of eating at least 90% of your foods from whole unprocessed plant foods you can heal your gut?

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You can do a complete gut makeover without a probiotic, without any other supplementation —  just from food alone. That's what's super exciting to see food as the most powerful medicine!

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Whole plant foods that help heal your gut: 

• Fruits
• Greens
• Vegetables
• Whole grains
• Beans
• Nuts
• Seeds

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Ready to lower your cholesterol without medicine, and heal your gut for optimum health? Inside your Dr. Cheryl Wellness Membership, you can be sure you are checking all the boxes of eating all the foods that heal your gut at just the right dose by taking The Score and getting 20/20 points. Focus on whole plant foods and you’re one step closer to reaching that goal!

‍Ready to Score Up, heal your gut, and add more years to your life? Hop back in the membership and check out exactly how you can do that. Each Member Dashboard is personalized to your own growth goals, so you’ll know exactly what to add to your daily Wellness routine.  To listen to Dr. Cheryl share about this topic, check out the podcast titled 01 How to Lower Your Cholesterol Without Medication.