5 Of the Worst Foods for your Heart Health

Bacon

Although bacon is a people's favorite, it's actually a double offender when it comes to your heart health.

Its high-fat and high-calorie levels are already borderline unhealthy (unless you're on a controlled keto diet, or something), but the worst part comes from the even higher amount of sodium they have.

Fast-food [anything]

Maybe except for sushi, anything fast-food — burgers, hot dogs, fries, nuggets, etc — should be the first things you remove from your diet or save them for very occasional indulgences.

Not only they are high in saturated fats, but also the combination of fatty meats and carbohydrates (meat and bread) increases, even more, the risk of heart-related issues.

To add insult to injury, fast-food restaurants tend to go for low-quality ingredients, and unhealthy cooking methods, so it's always a good idea to keep those at minimum.

Soft drinks and packaged juices

You'll be surprised to know that the largest source of added sugar on the American diet is actually not the food, but the beverages.

And, when you eat or drink excess sugar, it can affect your arteries which stresses your heart and damages it over time. In turn, this greatly increases the risk to heart-related issues.

Fast-food Pizza

This is another personal favorite, but a multiple heart offender.

Carbohydrates, fatty cuts like pepperoni, sausages, cheese on top of cheese with more cheese, and a high-sodium dough make most pizzas (unfortunately) a heart bomb.

When you feel like having pizzas, look for traditional places (where the dough tends to be less salty, and they normally use less cheese too), and go for veggie toppings.

Alcohol

While moderate drinking of alcohol doesn't seem to have a significant impact on your health, drinking too much alcohol is linked to high blood pressure, weight gain, strokes, and heart failure.

Plus, long-term alcohol abuse weakens and thins the heart muscle, affecting its ability to pump blood. When your heart can't pump blood efficiently, the lack of blood flow will also disrupt other basic functions of your body.