What Is the DASH Diet?

A DASH diet helps to lower your blood pressure with foods that offer low sodium and rich in nutrients like calcium, magnesium, and potassium. Like any other diet, it does not eliminate any food; instead, it recommends more fruits and veggies, whole grains, and calcium-rich dairy food.

Meal suggestions for the DASH diet:

Foods containing whole grains - choose whole-grain cereals, bread, oats, or pasta. Whole grains are high in fiber, nutrients, and low in fat.

Fruits - a bowl of freshly cut grapefruits, grapes, banana, and dry fruits like raisins or sliced strawberries, blueberries with oatmeal. Fruits are packed with potassium and magnesium and are an excellent choice for breakfast.

Veggies - vegetable sandwich or a cup of raw veggies like spinach leaves, sliced tomatoes, and sprouts are excellent breakfast meals. If you don’t like the raw taste, you can try grilled mushrooms, potatoes, onions, bell pepper, and eggplant. With high fiber and other nutrients, veggies go well with the DASH diet.

Low-fat dairy - a cup of low-fat milk, low-fat yogurt, or cheese can be taken.

DASH diet adds more potassium, magnesium, calcium, and fiber to your diet. These nutrients improve the electrolyte balance in the body, which allows the excretion of excess fluid. This process lowers your blood pressure. Also, this diet includes complete food that corrects any deficiencies and brings relaxation to your blood vessels. Altogether DASH diet greatly helps in bringing down the blood pressure.

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