The portfolio diet is based on structuring meals to maximize heart health rewards. It was invented by the nutritionist Dr. David Jenkins in the early 2000s, but it has been getting attention recently.
Dr. Jenkins explained that in a banking portfolio, “you’re spreading out your risks and benefits and trying to maximize your financial returns.” In the portfolio diet, you use foods to lower cholesterol and boost your health.
The diet is vegetarian and focuses on viscous fiber, plant proteins, plant sterols and healthy fats. All the foods have beneficial properties. The diet includes legumes — including soy products like tofu, soy milk and tempeh — seeds and nuts, olive oil, fruits and vegetables.
Because the diet is all about balance and eating style, it recommends the amounts of foods you should eat. Daily, people on the diet are supposed to have 20 grams of viscous fiber, 45 grams of nuts and seeds, 50 grams of plant proteins, two grams of plant sterols and 45 grams of oils/monounsaturated fats.
Prof. Andrea Glenn of NYU performed a large observational study on the diet. She said, “It’s not an all-or-nothing approach. You can take your own diet and make a few small changes and see cardiovascular benefits. The more of the foods (from the portfolio diet) that you eat, the greater your heart disease risk protection.”
The viscous fiber is the soluble, somewhat sticky fiber found in grains, okra, eggplant, fruit, seeds and psyllium seed husk. It binds with bile acids in the intestines and carries fat from the body. It also triggers the creation of more bile acids, burning cholesterol.
Protein from plants, according to research, when eaten as part of a low-cholesterol diet, may lower the risk of heart disease. Eating high-protein vegetables and legumes can provide you with all the protein you need without dairy or meat.
Plant sterols are compounds in nuts, legumes and vegetable oils that are structurally similar to cholesterol. Eating them limits how much cholesterol your body can absorb. While the healthy fats found in nuts, avocado and olive oil help lower cholesterol.
“People don’t normally put all these foods together,” said Dr. Jenkins. “People talk about soy, and oat bran, and plant sterols, oils and nuts, but nobody has put them all together.”
And Dr. Jenkins said that the diet isn’t designed for weight loss or shocking results. “We are not trying to go for the Atkins diet-type [of] impact. We’d rather have a concept that can evolve as we learn more and be able to give people the necessary information so that they can create the diet on their own.”
