We start our journey toward healthy living with two basic beliefs. Healthy eating is the foundation for long term health and vital living. Enjoying the foods we eat, each and every day, enriches our lives immeasurably.

If we must eat foods that we do not enjoy to achieve and preserve good health, maintaining a healthy eating approach will be a daily struggle. At Kardea, we share knowledge to help you understand how to integrate heart healthy nutrition with delicious eating.

What is heart healthy eating? The experts agree that heart healthy eating starts with a minimally processed, natural plant-based foundation -- lots of fruits, vegetables and whole grains. Many diets, including the Mediterranean diet, the DASH diet,and the NCEP diet, build on this foundation, also allowing you room for good oils, lean meats, dairy, fish, eggs, and sweets.

More restrictive plant-based diets offer less choice. These diets may well optimize heart health and are used to treat people with serious heart conditions. Variations on these heart healthy diets are endorsed by pioneering MDs and academic researchers including Dean Ornish, T. Collin Campbell, Joel Fuhrman, Caldwell Esselstyn, John McDougall and others. Allowing few, if any, animal-based products, and very limited amounts of fats -- even “good” fats -- these therapeutic plant-based diets permit only whole, unprocessed foods.

An unfortunate truth is that while the benefits of a plant-based diet are increasingly clear, as Americans we are moving further away from this approach to eating. Heart disease and stroke remain the leading causes of death and disability in the United States and only dramatic improvements in medical therapies have averted an epidemic. Diabetes and obesity rates continue to rise, and the costs of treatment continue to escalate unsustainably.

Here at Kardea, we provide a framework to help you identify where on the plant-based continuum -- from the Mediterranean diet to the most therapeutic of the plant-based diets -- you might find your balance between the daily celebration of wonderful foods and the mission to enhance your heart health. Upon this foundation, we offer tools and strategies as well as some foods and supplements to support you on this journey.

We want to help you achieve an enjoyable heart healthy lifestyle that is natural, effective, sustainable and leads to enhanced longevity and vitality. Using the delicious, healthy recipes and healthy cooking techniques in our Kardea Kitchen, and armed with knowledge of how to combine and balance foods to optimize your heart health, will help guide your journey