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Getting to the heart of Valentine's Day

Loving consideration of our own tender hearts
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Lead with your heart, not your head. Or the other way around, as you prefer.

Heart of gold. Heart of stone. Heart of a lion.

The heart is a lonely hunter.

Here comes Saint Valentine's Day — in honour of at least one of the Christian martyrs so-named — and at its heart, of course, lies the heart, loaded with a freight of meaning real and tangible as well as metaphorical and beyond.

The heart is always opening and closing, hardening or softening, Leonard Cohen observed at a point early in his evolution from poet to songwriter. The Great One was referring to love and the symbolic heart, but so it is also for the real heart.

With any good luck, each of our own hearts will continue to open and close rhythmically and regularly, neither hardening nor softening too much as time goes on.

And so this Valentine's Day, to ensure same, show true love to yourself and those you love by taking a vow to treat your faithful heart nicely, very nicely.

Feed it well. Exercise it. Care for it dearly and constantly, as it deserves — which includes keeping it clean, as in, not so much in the smoking, drugs and alcohol department — and your heart will respond with gratitude. Or at least as positively as it can.

The human heart weighs between 250 and 350 grams, or about 9 to 12 ounces. It starts to beat 80 times per minute about three weeks after conception and keeps on going until we die. That's billions of beats, billions of openings and closings or, more scientifically, expansions and contractions, which our poor hearts have to muscle their way through, day in, day out.

I say cut them a break before they break up with us.

My good doctor suggests doing regular health routines, like breast self-examination, on a date easy to remember each month, like your birth date. So how about using each Valentine's Day to do a reality check on how we're treating our dear hearts, and follow up on the 14th of each in-between month to stop slippage.

To start, let's look at the basics of heart smart eating.

I don't know about your days, but mine are pretty busy. Plus even at the best of times I'm not good at remembering things like less than 7 per cent of my daily calories should be from saturated fats; less than 1 per cent should be from trans fats; and I should eat fewer than 300 milligrams a day of cholesterol if I'm a healthy adult, and fewer than 200 milligrams a day if I have high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL), or "bad" cholesterol, or if I'm taking cholesterol-lowering drugs. Then there's the record keeping and the subsequent calculations. Whew. Who's really going to navigate all that?

Yes, precise formulas have been developed to guide us to a heart smart diet, like these from the Mayo Clinic. And to be fair, as new research and reports flow in these goalposts can change. But most heart-smart eating guides are sticking and, thankfully, can be simplified, as the Mayo Clinic has also done on its website, so that even I can actually follow them.

For one, if you remember nothing else, remember this — the best eating you can do for your heart is to purge your plate of unhealthy fats.

Think liquid, such as olive oil, canola oil and grapeseed oil, as opposed to solid. That means reducing butter, margarine, shortening, lard, bacon and meat fats, and processed foods that contain solid fats in high levels, especially the Trojan horses that sneak them in when you may not suspect it, such as those creepy non-dairy creamers and many packaged baked goods.

Read labels, and beware the phrase "partially hydrogenated." In the above list, I especially single out margarine, with more and more studies concluding it can do more harm than good.

If you eat meat, go lean or you might be going somewhere soon you don't want to, like a trip to the hospital in the back of an Advanced Medical Unit vehicle.

One of our best lean-meat choices and a crack-up recommendation for Valentine's Day dinner is heart.

Wait. Don't go, euuw. Push aside your prejudices and preconceived notions, especially if you travel and like street food because you've probably eaten heart and loved it, and didn't even realize it because you're not fluent in the local language.

Heart is lean, healthy, and delicious, as Jennifer McLagan points out in her latest great book, Odd Bits: How to Cook the Rest of the Animal, where you can learn to make Peruvian heart kebabs, heart burgers, Moroccan-style braised heart and her own creation, heart tartare.

Or go for fish, which means loving your brain, too. Non-meat alternatives, like garbanzo beans, lentils and their cousins are good. We usually call them dried beans or legumes, but if you call them by their European name, pulses, you'll remember they're good for your pulse.

Buck up those choices with lots of fruits, veggies and grains — the closer to their naturally beautiful selves the better. And here's good news if you're a nut case for nuts like I am: They make for a great heart smart snack (and Valentine's Day gift), delivering fibre and omega-3 fatty acids, which help prevent dangerous heart rhythms that can lead to heart attacks.

According to the Mayo Clinic, nuts also contain l-arginine, which may help improve the health of your artery walls by making them more flexible and less prone to blood clots that can block blood flow. Some nuts, such as peanuts, almonds and macadamia nuts, also contain plant sterols, which are known to help lower cholesterol. Just remember, nuts are also high in calories, so don't go too nuts.

Cut down on salt, watch your portion size, and you'll be on your way to a long and happy relationship with your heart, including many delightful Valentine's Days.

Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer who's watched her awesome heart hard at work in many an ultrasound.