I am Diana Mirkin and I would like to talk a little bit about beverages that you can use when you are trying to lower cholesterol, control high blood pressure or diabetes. The bottom line for beverages is no calories. I don't care what it is as long as it doesn't have calories in it. You can drink water or sparkling water, those are probably the very best choices, coffee, tea, soft drinks that have no calories in them, any other beverage that you like as long as the calories on the label say zero.

Why don't you drink calories in beverages, because these are easy ways to cause your blood sugar to rise and the calories that you consume in beverages don't ever fill you up. So, you take in calories and don't get any benefit of feeling full and satisfied from them. So, while you are following a Dash Diet, if you want to put a little milk on your oatmeal, that's fine, but don't drink your milk. If you want to have coffee that's fine, but don't put cream in it. If you want a soft drink, no sugared soft drinks, no fruit juices, fruit juices are just sugar water. If you want fruit, eat the whole fruit not the juice. Those are the rules for beverages on the modified Dash Diet that will help you lower your cholesterol, your high blood pressure and control your diabetes. Next, we are going to talk a little bit about some of the foods that you don't eat on the Dash Diet.