Foodie Gifts for Heart Patients

After a heart diagnosis, choosing foods that are low fat and low salt but still high in flavor can make shopping, cooking, and eating frustrating, not relaxing. Especially if the heart patient is not used to working in the kitchen, cooking from scratch can be confusing and stressful, too. After my own heart surgery, I had a hard time finding the time and energy to shop and make meals; having healthy food delivered withInstacartsaved my strength for enjoyable kitchen time instead of shopping.

To shake up the way a heart patient looks at ingredients, send them a meal-planning kit: monthly or weekly options, like Blue Apron and Hello Fresh, abound; some (likePeachDish) even meet vegan and other dietary needs. If your budget only allows for a smaller gift, jumpstart their interest in cooking with new ingredients by sending a 1-time meal-planning farm box, such as theFarmtoPeople tasting box.

Small appliances are hot items even in large kitchens. Blenders offer people the option to customize their own smoothies, make healthier versions of treats like milkshakes, and evengrind seedsor dried fruits for extra protein andfiberin recipes. If popular blenders likeVitamixare out of your budget, consider a smaller but still powerful item. Often, 500 volts is enough to crush ice.Consumer Reports has scored blendersfrom $50 to $400 by noise, crushing ability, and more.

就像我们生活的其他部分,厨房是becoming more digital in the 21st century. A kitchen scale used to be reserved for professional kitchens, but they are now becoming commonplace in the home too. After my heart surgery, I started using a small digital scale and theHappyForks online recipe analyzerto more accurately calculate nutritional information. Being able to add ingredients directly to the bowl and re-zero (tare) the scale meant less clean-up effort, too.

Like other kitchen gadgets, the price range for scales varies broadly. Options fromOxo aloneinclude different sizes by ingredient weights in pounds, and features like pull-out displays. But, even a smaller option (like myEscali) can help cooks in small spaces, with just one bowl, know exactly how much salt, fat, or sugar is in a product. And getting a scale in a fun color, or getting a tare bowl with a unique pattern, made such precision baking a bit more fun.

Just because a person has heart disease does not mean foods have to be bland, boring, or 100 percent healthy. Treats and favorite flavors in moderation are part of a well-balanced diet that avoids deprivation and rebound eating. A festive cookie jar can bepersonalizedand can remind your recipient that fun treats are not out of reach. Stocking the jar with homemade healthy-fat cookies can make the gift even more special. Similarly, a heart-shaped orcolorful measuring setcan make a baker with heart disease smile while staying true to healthy quantities in cakes and cookies.

Likewise, salt is not 100% unhealthy. Although a moderate amount of sodium is needed in the body to help balance cell health and fluid levels all over the body,extra salt in the diet is a big causeof increased blood pressure. Salt-free spices like thoseby Penzy’sintroduce new flavors without added sodium. When my blood pressure increased before heart surgery, my family added a new seasoning—Arizona Dreaming—on the dinner table and even to air-popped popcorn.

To help your gift recipient learn to cook with less sodium, make the use of salt more purposeful: a special salt like pink sea salt, or a grinder for coarse salt, helps patients use pinches visible during the cooking stages or to top the finished dish in the kitchen, not at the table. Coarsefinishing saltsalso have a lot of texture and immediate flavor on the tongue, so they makea bigger impactwith smaller amounts. Remember that 1 teaspoon of salt daily ismore than enough for adults.

After a cardiac event, returning to an old routine like baking or cooking can be emotionally and physically draining. Help refresh interest in food again with a newcookbook, or a membership to anonline cooking classor club. A free but still thoughtful way to encourage your loved one to revisit the kitchen is to support them as they collect or develop new recipes, too, which can be shared through social media foodie groups likeRecipefyorAllRecipeswith friends, family, or wider circles.

If your recipient is a survivor of open heart surgery, he or she has a lot of emotions about food, surviving, new priorities, and more. Remind him or her how special it is to be a member of the zipper club with a kitchen gift likethe Zipper Club apronatCafePress. Custom options on Etsy orZazzleoffer similar products at a range of prices, too. One more easy kitchen gifts to offer a heart patient this year? Time spent together making and sharing treats or special meals.