Trying to cook heart healthy. Cannot give up my smoking meats!

[jfmorris]

This is all great advice. I too have found that I no longer sit down and eat a half or whole slab of ribs like I might have in my younger days. I've lately been "pre slicing" steaks I cook into strips on the carving board, and find that I tend to take less this way, versus just dropping a whole steak on my plate.

[LA Pork Butt]

Boneless chicken thighs are full of flavor and can be smoked (225) without drying out. I like smoke roasting them at 375 for about 40 minutes. Hot smoked (225) fish is good, too. Pork loin is lean and taste good grilled. Smoking it without drying out is tricky. Grilled or roasted veggies are good, too.

[Mosca]

It’s been 26 years since my 4x bypass. You will be fine.

[tbob4]

I’ve been playing a lot with fish this winter. I haven’t done it for health reasons - more because I just wanted to expand my diet. It has been fun because I have had a lot of fails. I forgot that sometimes it is fun to figure out why something doesn’t work. Sometimes is predicated by time. If I mess up fish I can start over and get it done again relatively quickly. It’s not so fun when you mess up a 24 hour brisket. You can’t just start that over.

[BBQPhil]

My interest in BBQing coincided with the decision to lose 30 pounds. I agonized whether buying a pellet smoker (Yoder 480) would prevent my effort to lose weight. It's now 10 months later and I've lost 30 pounds and have had some of the best homemade BBQ ever. I joined WeightWatchers, which provides a simple way to eat 200 foods without limitations (chicken, fish, veggies, etc.) and limit the amount of other food by simple tracking on an app. As an example, I'll smoke a rack of baby back ribs and have perhaps 3 instead of 8, along with grilled veggies and a huge salad. Or I'll have 6 ounces of a sliced steak instead of the entire 14 ounce steak. I was surprised at how well this worked, but it proved that it's possible to enjoy BBQ while improving your health.

[tbob4]

Hello! I notice that this is your first post but have been around for awhile. It’s great to hear from you. It sounds like based on your experiences you have good recipes to share!

[Northofchicago]

I had a heart attack and 3 stents over 20 years ago. I've found that listening to your Dietician (I'm sure they counseled you in the hospital) but preparing almost everything (tofu, chicken, lean red meats, etc) on the grill makes life worth living - dare I say it? - risk free. Plus, it's kinda fun to modify and look for recipes for your lifestyle. Throw in a low carb diet to lose weight and a little exercise and you can go crazy with food joy and live forever. Unless, of course, you get the virus. Good luck. Have fun.

[jfmorris]

cruiseplanner1 I think something that I've done more the past couple of years is branch out into doing more veggies, fish and chicken on the grill. It's not the same as your low and slow BBQ like butt, ribs or brisket, but certainly less fattening and more healthy. So, more direct grilling, and less smoking. On the plus side, things get done faster...

[pkadare]

I had a mild heart attack in 2015 and had stents put in then, and I also had a quadruple bypass 11 months ago. To be quite honest, I really haven't changed my diet much at all, and over the years I've come to learn that my issues are not diet related but rather are hereditary. I've tried all of the heart healthy diets and programs (ok, maybe not all, but certainly a lot) and they have never had much of an impact on my cholesterol numbers. My numbers are and have been, really good for quite some time now, and as I said, I have not really changed my meat intake either in quantity nor in what meats I eat. Of course, I'm not a doctor so this is only an observation, not advice.

[cruiseplanner1]

So just two weeks before Christmas I underwent a quadruple bypass surgery. All went very well and I am back to working out and most activities. However I was quite an avid BBQ smoker but now will have to watch some of the cuts I have been using. I want to share with any other members one of the things I did was switch to pork loin roasts instead of pork butts. Amazing how moist and flavorful they are. Any other tips anyone has to share for lower fat cooking? Would appreciate