What should I NOT eat, in order to keep my cholesterol low?

Unfortunately the latest work suggests that diet is less important than previously though. We do eat to many fats in our diet and its often a good idea to reduce these, apparently the type of fats isn't that important. The idea that animal fats were bad has been rejected now. Unfortunately Cholesterol is an important fat and has a number of uses in our bodies, if you don't eat what your body think it needs it simply produces it. Really to have a significant effect on your blood fats you have to take things like statins or foods containing plant sterols like Benecol.

Don't listen to anyone saying you should cut fat and/or cholesterol from your diet. They improve the good HDL cholesterol.

The foods to avoid are sugars and starches - carbohydrates. They produce inflammation which makes your body produce bad LDL cholesterol.

Very little dietary cholesterol turns into LDL cholesterol. Your liver makes most of the cholesterol inyour body.

Actually, you blood cholesterol is manufactured by your liver, it is not delivered to the blood from food. So in effect, food doesn't affect cholesterol levels directly. But being fat, causes the liver to put more cholesterol and triglycerides into your blood and eating lots of Calories puts on weight and raises cholesterol. So if you are thin, cholesterol will not be a problem If you are fat, and stay fat, eating straight salads won't change much.

Foods containing cholesterol

Some foods contain cholesterol. This type of cholesterol is called dietary cholesterol. Foods such as kidneys, eggs and prawns are higher in dietary cholesterol than other foods.

The cholesterol found in food has much less of an effect on the level of cholesterol in your blood than the amount of saturated fat that you eat.

If your GP has advised you to change your diet to reduce your blood cholesterol, the most important thing to do is to cut down on saturated fat. It's also a good idea to increase your intake of fruit, vegetables and fibre.

Fats and cholesterol

There are two main types of fat – saturated and unsaturated. Eating foods that are high in saturated fat can raise cholesterol levels in the blood. Most people in the UK eat too much saturated fat.

Foods high in saturated fat include:
meat pies
sausages and fatty cuts of meat
butter
ghee
lard
cream
hard cheese
cakes and biscuits
foods containing coconut or palm oil

Eating foods that contain unsaturated fat instead of saturated fat can actually help reduce cholesterol levels.
Try to replace foods containing saturated fats with foods that are high in unsaturated fats, such as:
oily fish (such as mackerel and salmon)
nuts (such as almonds and cashews)
seeds (such as sunflower and pumpkin)
vegetable oils and spreads (such as sunflower, olive, corn, walnut and rapeseed oils)
Trans fats can also raise cholesterol levels. Trans fats can be found naturally at low levels in some foods, such as those from animals, including meat and dairy products.
Artificial trans fats can be found in hydrogenated fat, so some processed foods such as biscuits and cakes will contain trans fats.

As part of a healthy diet, try to cut down on foods containing trans fats or saturated fats and replace them with foods containing unsaturated fats.

You should also reduce the total amount of fat in your diet. Try microwaving, steaming, poaching, boiling or grilling instead of roasting or frying. Choose lean cuts of meat and go for low-fat varieties of dairy products and spreads, or eat just a small amount of full-fat varieties.

One of the notorious foods with high cholesterol is pork,some beef meat.eating alot of carbohydrates is not good as they have high levels of cholesterol when they are being broken down at digestion.

You should talk to your general physician.
But generally egg yolks, red meat, oils, and fast food are the first things that are cut out of a diet with someone with a high cholesterol.

Buckets of lard.