The Zero Heart Attack Path (ZHAP) Diet

The ZHAP diet is a low fat diet plan aimed at lowering your cholesterol levels and reducing the risk of suffering from a heart ailment. The ZHAP diet is a new, specially designed low fat diet plan which tastes as good as your normal food and which you will be able to adhere to without any difficulty.It is low in substances that are bad for your health and rich in substances that will protect you against heart disease and other illnesses. These meals are meant not just for the person at risk; they are for the whole family. This has two obvious benefits: one, you need not cook two sets of meals;two, the persons at risk is not tempted by the food consumed by others.

Salient features of the ZHAP diet

This is a purely vegetarian diet which includes vegetables, fruits, pulses, grains and non-fat dairy products.It excludes all kinds of oils, butter, cheese, ghee (clarified butter), processed foods and coconut. Of course it goes without saying that sweets, fried items and alcohol are not a part of it.

Contarary to what is usually believed, there is no significant loss of taste due to the lack of oils,coconut and butter. Seasoning of curries, dals and sambars is more a matter of habit and dispensing with it doesn't really affect the taste of the particular dish.Use of butter in soups can be avoided by pureeing the cooked vegetables and adding a little bit of skimmed milk to it. In salads, try to use low fat yoghut, lemon juice and vinegar instead of salad oil. Breakfast items like dosas should be prepared in a non-stick pan, which requires very small quantities of oil. By following such general principles, you can suitably modify your own favourate recipes into low fat items.