Ten Heart Healthy Gifts for the Holidays

1. A Personal Water Bottle.  Staying hydrated is an important part of keeping your blood pressure low, which in turn, helps out your heart. But if you're shopping for someone who has a hard time drinking all the water that doctors recommend we drink, you can help them out.  There are tricks to getting in all your daily recommended dose of water, but one of the most effective things you can do is buy a water bottle that gets rid of the guesswork. If you're looking for a heart healthy gift this holiday season, a water bottle should be at the top of your list.

2. A Garlic Press.  Garlic is a heart healthy blood thinner and it's a good idea to get more fresh garlic into our diets. Most people don't eat enough heart healthy garlic because they think it's too much trouble.  Luckily, there are ways to add fresh garlic to your diet without all the hassle. A good garlic press that doesn't require you to peel the garlic first is one way to do that, and it makes a great little heart healthy gift for the holidays.

3. Stainless Steel Soap.  Another reason that people shy away from heart healthy garlic is because they don't like the smell.  The oils get on their fingers and it's hard to wash off.  This is where a truly unusual gift can come to the rescue: stainless steel soap.  By rubbing it between your hands under running water, it removes stubborn odors like garlic and onions.

4. High Fiber Baked Goods.  If you like to bake for the holidays, but you're stumped as to what kind of heart healthy baked goods you can make, worry no more.  These days, the heart healthy thing to do is to add more fiber to your diet. You can turn almost any baked good recipe you have into a heart healthy recipe by adding fiber.  Gone are the days of grainy fiber that made everything taste like cardboard.  Now they have a new product called Fibersure, that dissolves so completely you can put it into a water bottle and not notice it's there.  Add it to your cakes and cookies to help counteract all that butter.