Thanksgiving dinner can make your heart beat faster with delight at the sight of all the delicious roast turkey, side dishes and desserts.
But what does the feast — with all of its fat, salt, meat, sugar and alcohol — actually do to your heart health?
Ask cardiologists what they eat for Thanksgiving and two camps emerge. Some are horrified by the traditional dinner and choose a different menu for their own family.
“If you look at the purpose of holidays, we’re really trying to celebrate life. And yet, we sit down together with people and poison each other. This is something we really need to fix,” Dr. Andrew Freeman, director of cardiovascular prevention and wellness at National Jewish Health in Denver, tells TODAY.com.
He doesn’t eat turkey or any animal-based proteins anymore, making squash stuffed with quinoa, beans and spices as his main course on Thanksgiving.
But the other camp of heart doctors believes it’s important to enjoy the holiday along with its traditional foods.
“I’m probably not a typical cardiologist. I eat everything for Thanksgiving,” says Dr. Marc Eisenberg, a clinical cardiologist and associate professor of medicine at the Columbia University Medical Center in New York.
“If you deprive yourself for Thanksgiving, then likely the next day or the day after, you’re just going to binge eat everything you feel like you missed out on. I tell most people: Just enjoy yourself.”
It’s one day out of the year, so Dr. Sean Heffron, a cardiologist in the Center for the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease at NYU Langone Health in New York, says he allows himself some freedom.
“(But) don’t make it six weeks out of the year, which is what many people do from Thanksgiving all the way to New Year’s and it’s easy to do,” he warns.
There are also some important caveats for people with heart disease.
Here’s what heart doctors will eat this Thursday, and the foods and drinks they avoid:
What cardiologists eat for Thanksgiving:
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