Heart attacks are the leading cause of death in the United States. According to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; 631,636 people died of heart disease in 2006. Heart disease caused 26% of deaths—more than one in every four—in the United States.

What causes heart attack? In most cases, an attack occurs when the blood supply to part of the heart muscle is severely reduced or stopped, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). This stoppage is caused when one of the arteries that supply blood to the heart is obstructed, usually by the fatty plaques that characterize atherosclerosis, a result of coronary-artery disease.

Although it is not clear where the plaques come from in each individual case, the most common causes are blood cholesterol level that’s too high, a hereditary tendency to develop atherosclerosis, and increasing age (55 percent of all heart attack victims are 65 or older, 45 percent are under 65 years of age, and 5 percent are under 40).

You can’t change your age, your gender, or your genes, but you can watch what you eat to reduce your risk of developing heart disease. The following tips were taken from The Home Remedies Handbook.

Stay away from saturated fats. Many people make the mistake of believing that if their blood cholesterol level is high that it’s because they ate too many foods containing cholesterol. Not exactly true, says W. Virgil Brown, M.D., past president of the AHA and professor of medicine and the director of the division of Arteriosclerosis and Lipid Metabolism at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. The number-one cause of high serum cholesterol is eating too much saturated fat, the kind of fat that is found in full-fat dairy products and animal fat, he says. Another culprit is partially hydrogenated vegetable oil which contains trans fatty acids, substances that increase the cholesterol raising properties of a fat. The best rule-of-thumb is to stick with fats that are as liquid as possible at room temperature, according to Brown. “For example”, he says, “if you are going to use margarine, use the most liquid kinds, such as the tubs or squeeze bottles.”

Read your meat. The small orange labels stuck to the packages of meat at the grocery store aren’t advertisements or promotions; they’re actually grades of meat, William P. Castelli, M.D., director of the Framingham Heart Study in Massachusetts. “Prime,” “Choice,” and “Select” are official U.S. Department of Agriculture shorthand for “fatty,” “less-fatty,” and “lean,” he explains. “Prime is about 40 percent to 45 percent fat by weight, Choice is from 30 percent to 40 percent fat, and Select, or diet lean, is from 15 percent to 20 percent fat,” he says. You could have a hamburger made from Select ground beef for breakfast, lunch and dinner and still not exceed your daily saturated fat limit, he adds.

Learn to count grams of fat. The AHA’s dietary guidelines outline the percentages of daily calories that should come from fat. However, since most package labels show grams of fat, not percentages, it can be difficult to figure out exactly what you’re eating. Instead, he recommends counting grams of fat. How many grams of fat, and how many grams of saturated fat, can you have each day? Multiply your total number of calories per day by .30, and then divide by 9 to find the number of grams of total fat allowed. (You divide by 9 because of each gram of fat provides 9 calories.) Multiply your total number of calories per day by .10 and divide by 9 to find the number of grams of saturated fat allowed each day.

“If you’re on a 2,000-calorie-per-day diet, you should not eat no more than 22 grams of saturated fat a day,” Castelli says. “The average American eats twice as much.”

What can you eat for 22 grams of fat? One serving of Choice beef contains from 12 to 15 grams of fat, whereas serving of Select contains 4 to 10. One tablespoon of butter is just under seven grams, while many brands of low-fat margarine contain only one gram per tablespoon. Whole milk has a whopping five grams per cup; skim milk just one. You add it up. After all, if you choose the lower-fat versions of each item, maybe you’ll have enough saturated fat calories left in your daily budget to indulge in some low-fat frozen yogurt, a cup of which may contain as little as two grams of saturated fat.

Eat as much like a vegetarian as possible. Dietary cholesterol is found only in animal products; animal products also tend to be higher in fat (Skim milk products are exceptions), especially saturated fat. Foods derived from plant sources, on the other hand, contain no cholesterol and tend to be lower in fat. The fats they do contain tend to be polyunsaturated and monounsaturated, which are healthier than the saturated kind, says Peter F. Cohn, M.D., chief of cardiology of the State University of New York at Stony Brook. (The exceptions are coconut oil, palm oil, palm kernel oil, and particularly hydrogenated oils, which contain higher amounts of saturated fatty acids.) You’ll be doing you arteries a favour if you increase your intake of vegetable proteins, such as beans, whole grains, and tofu, and keep servings of high-fat animal products to a minimum.

Increase your carbohydrates intake. Adding extra servings of complex carbohydrates into your diet will fill you up and make your feel more satisfied, leaving less room for fatty meats and desserts, says Cohn. Complex carbohydrates include fruits, vegetables, pasta, whole grains, and rice.

Grill it. Grilling, broiling, and steaming are heart-smart ways to cook food, says Brown. Unlike frying, they require no added fat.

Skin a (dead) chicken. The skin of chicken (and turkey, too, for that matter), is an absolute “no-no” for people who are watching their fat intake, according to Cohn. The skin contains high amounts of saturated fat, he says.

Skip the pastry. One hidden source of saturated fat is pastry- donuts, Danishes, piecrust, éclairs and so on, says Brown. These confections are often made with shortening or butter – two things that should be limited to people who are working to reduce their saturated fat intake. Stick with whole grain bread and rolls, and read labels to make sure you know what’s in the package, he suggests.

Eat fish. Fish oil, as a cholesterol reducer, has gotten a lot of play in the media in the past few years. And it is true that the slimy stuff contains high levels of omega-3 fatty acids, substances that have been associated with lower cholesterol levels, according to Henry Blackburn, M.D., Mayo Professor of the Public Health and a professor of medicine at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. However, the greatest benefit has been achieved in people who frequently substitute their intake of higher fat meats with fish. Also, fish oil itself tends to be high in fat, Blackburn says. His advice is to add more servings of fish into the diet (as substitute for some of the meat dishes) and reap the oil’s benefits naturally.

Eat smaller meat proportions. One way to cut down on saturated fat without giving up steaks is to keep your proportions small, says Brown. “Reduce the size of the meat proportions, even chicken, to about three ounces per serving,” he advises. “Try to have a vegetarian lunch. Then you can have six ounces at dinner.” A three-ounce serving is about the size of a deck of cards, Brown says.

Increase your fiber intake. Soluble fiber, the kind found in fruits and brans, has been shown to be effective in lowering cholesterol levels, says Brown. However, to exert this effect, it must be consumed in high amounts; a bowl of oatmeal a day probably won’t make much difference. “You have to eat about a quarter pound of oatmeal per day to get ten grams of soluble fiber a day, the amount that can lower cholesterol,” he says. He recommends a daily one-teaspoon dose of a psyllium-husk powder, such as Metamucil, which provides a lot more bang for our buck. “For the person whose cholesterol is still borderline high after changing their diet, psyllium may give them another eight percent to ten percent reduction in their LDL,” he says. And no need to get overboard, either. More than ten grams a day won’t make much more of a difference, he says. It’s also prudent to increase your fiber intake gradually in order to give your system time to adjust.

Eat like the rest of the world. “Four billion of the 5.3 billion people on this earth eat 15 grams of saturated fat or less each day,” says Castelli. “Where do they live? Asia, Africa, and Latin America. They are four billion people that never get atherosclerosis. We want our 250 million people to eat like those 4 billion. If we accomplished this, we could get rid of heart attacks, stroke, and other manifestations of cardiovascular disease. We could live five years longer, which isn’t much. However, we wouldn’t have heart attacks in our 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, or 80s. That is the vision of America.”