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If you eat the kinds and quantities of foods outlined in my modified food guide pyramid, including the Chitosan, of course, you’ll probably be able to stay within the Fat Blocker guidelines for protein, carbohydrate, and certainly for fat. That leaves just two other things to watch out for: cholesterol and sodium.

Everybody knows that high blood cholesterol is a risk factor for heart disease. Cholesterol is a major component of plaque, a substance that contains fat and accumulates on the walls of

arteries, clogging these vessels the way hair clogs up bathroom pipes. And remember when you pull the fat out of plaque, the body can do a better job of dilating the blood vessels.

About 75 percent of our blood cholesterol is manufactured by the liver, with the other 25 percent coming from the foods we eat. The major dietary cause of high blood cholesterol is saturated fat. If you’re following the Fat Blocker Eating Program, you’re eating only reasonable amounts of lean meats, poultry, and fish, and many of your dairy products are low or nonfat. More important, you are also blocking a large percentage of your saturated fat with Chitosan. As a result, saturated fat intake shouldn’t be a problem for you. But for some people, blood

cholesterol increases when
they eat cholesterol-containing foods, even ones that contain

relatively little saturated fat. Among the biggest offenders are egg yolks, organ meats (liver, kidney, heart, brains, sweetbreads), and certain shellfish (shrimp and oysters).

One egg contains as much cholesterol (300 mg.) as you actually need in a day. So try to limit yourself to no more than one egg per day, and no more than three eggs per week. This can be difficult since this includes eggs in baked goods or other foods. However, if you exceed your limit, don’t worry too much. Now that you’re on a Chitosan diet, at least you know that you’re not building more cholesterol from absorbing excess saturated fat.

Also, it’s useful to take some other precautions against taking in excess cholesterol. For example, I eat only the whites of the eggs to ensure that I consume no cholesterol. I love a simple omelet made with egg whites, vegetables, and spices. It tastes excellent and requires virtually no fat to cook, thus letting me save Chitosan for other things that do require fat. Also, when I eat a high-cholesterol meal, I try to make the rest of the meals that day vegetarian. Even if you don’t quite succeed in this, the attempt is worth the effort. For remember, you are not expecting to instantly achieve the ideal diet, only one that is a step closer to the ideal than you were yesterday!

High-sodium diets can contribute to another heart disease risk factor—hypertension, better known as high blood pressure. Called the silent killer because it produces no symptoms in the early stages, high blood pressure can exert enough pressure on your arteries to cause tiny cracks to appear in their walls. Clots and plaque can form in the cracks, and before you know it, you’ve got the makings of a heart attack or stroke. Sodium in excessive quantity can cause blood pressure to rise in certain sensitive individuals, eventually leading to heart enlargement and congestive heart failure. We doctors have many medicines to lower blood pressure, but they all have side effects. Perhaps the best medicine is to avoid the problem altogether by reducing your salt intake. As I described earlier, if you do this very gradually, it is not hard to do.

Some diets recommend lowering your salt level by going cold turkey and just throwing your salt shaker away so you won’t be tempted to add salt to your food at the table. If that works for you, great. But if it doesn’t, the slow-and-easy method described earlier works, too. And it’s in line with my thinking about Chitosan. It’s better to go real slow and easy, making tiny changes regularly and helping yourself along with Chitosan, than it is to take huge steps only, inevitably, to stumble and fall.

Whether you use the gradual or the cold turkey approach to cutting down on salt, sooner or later you will want to keep the salt you use in cooking to a minimum. Put in half the amount the recipe calls for, or even less. Stay away from salty foods such as smoked, pickled, or cured foods, canned soups, frozen dinners, salad dressings, catsup, baked goods, crackers, chips, or salted popcorn. Eat fresh vegetables and fruits, not canned. After a while, you’ll find that your old favorites suddenly taste much too salty. And you’ll discover the more delicate, true tastes of food.

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