newjerseynewsroom.com

BY PAM LOBLEY

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

NOW THAT’S FUNNY

U.S. News and World Report has just rated the DASH diet amongst the top most effective diets out there. The Mediterranean Diet, long a popular diet, came in a close second.

DASH stands for Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension, and it was developed primarily to improve one’s health by lowering blood pressure. High blood pressure (hypertension) can cause stroke, heart attack, and other serious conditions. As luck would have it, the diet is also good at lowering your weight, and for that reason it is getting attention now as a great way to take off – and keep off – excess pounds.

What is the secret of DASH? What has doctors so excited about this diet? Why does the Mayo Clinic have a special recipe page (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dash-diet-recipes/RE00089) devoted to it on their website?

Prepare yourself for a shock. This diet is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It has the sharp audacity of bold newness, and it may, at first, sound so outrageous that you will not be able to convince yourself of its veracity. The secret?

Eat more fruits and vegetables. Choose lean protein over fatty. Avoid sugary foods.

Oh yes, my friend, you read correctly. Although it flies in the face of every dietary convention you have ever read, even as it counteracts all the previous advice you’ve ever heard about healthy eating, though you may reject, to your very core, this strange and impudent suggestion of nutritional habit, nay, even then, I say to you: it is true.

Of course, it sounds ridiculous. Yet, research has shown that the diet lowers blood pressure. And, in a new and stunning finding, teenage girls who followed basic principles of the DASH diet through their teens had a smaller tendency to gain an excess amount of weight by the time they reached early adulthood than teens who didn't stick to this diet.