You're already received some very sound advice... While I can't suggest any cookbooks, I can offer some of the tips I've learned since hubby had his heart attack and strokes ( high blood pressure and high cholesterol )... First things first... If he's unable to go back to work you are going to be under a LOT of stress... Try to finds ways to cope... You won't be much help to him if you get sick too... (ask me how I know) What I found to be the most valuable was keeping track of every thing he ate for a week or two... Every slice of bread, every sip of pop, everything... I made up a chart and kept track of the sodium and fats... ( I used a booklet called Nutritive Value of Foods from the U.S. Publishing Office that I picked up years ago. ) It wasn't all that hard, since he's home all the time, and I found out that I was actually keeping him below his limits ( had him down to 500 mg of sodium and 15 to 20 g of fat a day, way too low for a man )... Check with your hubby's doctor or a good nutritionist to find out his limits... After you find out his limits and total up what he eats you'll be able to cook healthy for him... Try not to refer to it as a diet.... It's best if you think about it as healthy eating, cutting back on the bad stuff and increasing the good stuff... Cut back to 3 or 4 oz, total, of meat a day and double up on veggies & fruits... If he has favorite foods that he says he can't live without, that are bad for him, just limit the amounts or how often he has them... Totally eliminating something will only make him want it more and create more problems, mainly resentment and anger towards you. Keep plenty of fruits on hand for snacking, cut it up if you have to... Within a few weeks he'll head for the fruit instead of looking for the chips... Fruit juice, with all its calories, is better than pop or coffee ( a lot of caffeine is bad for heart patients ).... Only buy frozen or canned veggies without any added salt... My hubby will only eat canned and I was lucky enough to find a Save-A-Lot store that carries them, for a lot less than the regular chain stores and the quality is just as good or better... Hunt's sells a lot of tomato products without salt, including ketchup... Herb-Ox Low Sodium beef bullion is passable but the chicken is lacking... Read the labels of everything you buy, twice... Read it the first time to check the fat and sodium content then read it again for the serving size, low fat - low salt isn't necessarily so... Take the cooking sprays for example, a serving is a 3 SECOND blast, by the time you say it you're already over the 3 second limit... ( I dab a paper towel with canola oil and wipe the pans with that )... Healthy breads aren't all that healthy for heart patients, the mushy white stuff only has 135 mg of sodium per slice and I've seen 'healthy' bread with as much as 450 mg per slice... You have to really read the labels! You can 'fry' healthy with water... I buy pork loins and beef roasts, trim off the fat and grind it up for patties and 'fry' them with a bit of water... Cover the meat, let the steam do its thing and cook a bit more with the cover off to brown... For 'fried' potatoes I parboil them in the microwave then brown in a frying pan with 2 teaspoons of canola... You have to keep turning or flipping them so they brown evenly but most of the time they look like real fried potatoes... French fries don't work as well... I stay away from prepared foods, as much as possible, because of the fats and sodium... But making everything from scratch can truly be a huge pain, especially when things go wrong from lack of salt or are too dry because you've cut the fats too much... Look for recipes that don't call for much of either ( there's 2,132 mg of sodium in 1 teaspoon of salt, it doesn't matter which kind.. watch out for baking soda, baking powder, MSG, soy sauce, anything that has sodium in the word )... Some times you can substitute apple sauce for some of the fats but don't try removing all of it... MAKE SURE HE TAKES HIS ALL HIS MEDICATIONS! If all your efforts fail to get him on the right track ask him if he'd like to have another heart attack or perhaps a stroke and become totally depend on you for all his daily needs. Rita Above all cultivate your sense of humor, you'll need it to get you through the tough times.

Hi Gina! Although I can't furnish you with recipes I can offer some suggestions... Since a blocked artery caused the heart attack than means he'll have to cut down on the bad fats as well as sodium... The first month or so I went overboard, cutting out just about all fats and anything with salt... Hubby was mainly eating fruits and oatmeal... Needless to say that wasn't good, he wasn't getting all the things his body needed to stay healthy and became as weak as a new born kitten... I contacted a dietician and she told me hubby could have as much as 60 g of fat, the good kind, and 2000 mg of sodium a day ( depends on weight and height )... The only fats he should stay away from are saturated and trans fats... I came up with the idea of keeping track of everything I feed him, the amounts, the fats and the sodium and that turned out to be a life saver... ( I disregarded keeping track of his cholesterol because new studies state that it's the bad fats and genes which clog the arteries. ) You'll really be surprised on just how much one can eat, without gaining weight, if you cut back of fatty foods... After the first few days I knew I was going way overboard, he was only getting 20 to 30 g of fat and 900 mg of sodium... Hardly enough to sustain a 5'6", 150 pound man... After the second week I had a good handle on just how much I could feed him and still stay within the guidelines... Now for the suggestions... Read the labels, REALLY read them... If something says fat free make sure you check the serving size... Cooking spray for example, it says no fat but a serving size is a spray lasting for 1/3 of a second!.. How does one time 1/3 of a second??? By the time you count to 1 you already have 1.5 g of fat and if you want to coat the whole pan we're talking close to 4 or 5 g of fat and the scary part is that, with some sprays, a good part of that is saturated fat!!! For me, a much better and cheaper way is to dab a paper towel with canola oil and wipe the pan until you only see a sheen and no droplets, no saturated fat, in fact only a trace of any fat. The same goes for salt, READ the labels... Hidden sodium and fats are really high in convenience foods, cake mixes, prepared goodies, Hamburger Helper, canned stews, chili and such, as well as restaurant food... So far I've found No Added salt canned veggies ( hubby prefers canned to frozen, why I don't know! ), tomatoes & tomato sauce and even no salt ketchup all at the local store. I picked up some no sodium baking powder at the health food store. On your meats, if you trim off all the fat you can see, beef and pork aren't really all that bad... Two & a half oz of pork only has 3.4 mg of saturated fat, 2.8 oz of lean beef only has 2.7 g of saturated fat while a chicken drumstick has 3 g of saturated fat... ( facts from USDA book Nutritive Value of Foods )... If you want to use ground chicken or turkey grind it yourself, when you buy it in the store they include the skin and fat.... It's really hard to tell a man he can only have 3 or 4 oz of meat but he'll complain less if you really fill him up with other foods... Low fat low salt foods... Example, 4 oz of baked chicken ( skin removed), cup of peas, cup of creamed corn, two medium potatoes ( no skin, boiled ), cup apple sauce, two slices of store bought bread and 12 oz of apple juice... Total fat 9 g, total sodium 474 mg. ( close to 300 mg was from the bread alone )... If I could find no salt bread I could feed hubby 4 meals a day just like this and still stay within his limits... ( if he could eat that much... lol ) A few hints... I still give hubby 'fried' potatoes BUT I 'fry' them in water and add 1 tablespoon canola oil... As the water boils away the potatoes cook and the oil starts to brown them... You have to keep flipping the potatoes to get a nice 'fried' color... I still drain the potatoes on paper towels... I grind my own beef and pork for hamburgers and patties then 'fry' them, covered, in a little bit water until cooked then a few minutes without the cover to brown them up a bit... Some times they're a bit on the dry side but a squirt of no salt ketchup or a thick slice of a juicy tomato fixes that... Above all tell your sister-in-law to cut back on his fats and make sure he takes all his meds, every day... He has to get his HDL's up and the only way to do that is quit smoking ( very important for a heart attack patient ), some sort of exercise for 30 minutes a day and cut way back on the bad fats... She doesn't need the added stress of taking care of a hubby who has had a stroke. Rita

Lots of good advice above. I've been into heart healthy cooking for a long time since heart disease at a young age runs in my family. That being the case it's sometimes hard to get interested in a lot of the recipes I find here - unfortunately. Here are some of the things I do: Very limited qty of red meat but I do have it once in a while. I love a good steak on the grill but where I might have eaten an entire NY strip in the past I now have maybe 1/4 - 1/3 of a steak. I never use hamburger any more - I substitute the leanest ground turkey. I eat a lot more fish than I used to and have found lots of interesting recipes for it. Pretty much avoid refined white stuff and substitute whole grains as much as possible. More vegetables and fruit - always have things on hand for snacking Low fat cooking - for example I'd never cook something with cream. I use skim milk in most everything - light coconut milk in some asian dishes - evaporated skim milk. Simple, unadulterated foods - not in sauces, etc. I now use more interesting salt free spice blends - Penzey's is my friend. I agree with the person who above said to try totally new things - don't just try to make low fat/low salt versions of the old stuff. It will likely be disappointing. I've discovered so many amazing flavors that come through when foods are not loaded down with salt, cream, butter and cheese. There are especially interesting foods and flavors from other parts of the world. I love Cooking Light - it's the first place I look for something new to try - love the online search capability though I also get the magazine. I know I'm not going to discover a great recipe only to find it laden with butter, cream and bacon. Good-luck - consider it a cooking adventure!

i would definitely get an A, but take into consideration I am a dietitian and am currently in treatment for colon cancer.... it would make sense... I agree red meat needs to be eaten in moderation. Memorial Sloan kettering has done the studies and says 18 ounces a week should be the limit otherwise you are putting yourself at high risk for a myriad of cancers particularly colon, not to mention heart disease etc.. It is actually the heme iron in the red meat that is the culprit. Although everyone does need iron, iron can also be bad for us especially if we are fighting cancer. In my case i believe stress caused my disease, and not my diet, but even though i have always eaten pretty healthy, now my whole family is on the bandwagon and we eat super healthy. When i grill we make sure to marinade everything, and eat a vit c source to negate any carcinogens. We don't eat any deli meats or products with nitrites/nitrates in them (carcinogens) We eat red meat no more than twice a week-otherwise it is chicken, turkey, or a meatless meal like whole wheat spaghetti or egg white omelettes. We have 2 veg at very meal and a large fruit bowl out at each meal as well. WE eat ALOT of berries. I have never liked whole wheat bread in the past but i have found sara lee's classic whole wheat to be wonderfully soft and even my kids love it.. We limit dairy to 2 cups of milk a day, and carbs to no more than 3-4 a meal (for insulin control).. We do splurge sometimes... when we go out to eat which is only like every other week we eat whatever we want, and i allow my kids one "good" snack a day like ice cream or a brownie or potato chips or whatever.. You have to have some fat...and some sugar because i feel you have to enjoy life too...