?You are what you eat.? We have all heard this saying in many different contexts. But how much truth is in it? While there is abundant evidence that your diet has significant impact on your health, trying to connect specific health aspects with certain foods or diets may be taking the analogy too far.

For example, you may have heard the claim that vegetarian diets have been shown to lower blood pressure. The same people often also claim that high-fat diets with their associated cholesterol contribute to high blood pressure. At the same time, many people who tried the Atkins Diet ? about as far from vegetarianism as you can get ? were pleasantly surprised to see their blood pressure go down! Of course I'm not recommending T-bone steaks to lower blood pressure because that would just be making the same mistake.

A high blood pressure diet has nothing to do with salt substitutes, non-dairy milk and cheese, egg substitutes and other fake food with allegedly healthy purposes! Take salt, for instance. I mean, use it; there is nothing wrong with it. Salt has had to play the blood pressure bogeyman for decades without justification. The reason salt is associated with high blood pressure is because our diets high in processed foods create an imbalance in the minerals sodium, magnesium and potassium. You don't need to avoid salt; you need to eat whole foods with a natural balance of minerals!

Now, there is in fact an "official" high blood pressure diet. It's called the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension). Acronyms always make things sound worse than they are but the DASH diet is actually pretty sensible. It needn't be targeted specifically for hypertension because in reality this is a simple, common-sense diet that promotes all-round good health.

Basically, the DASH diet is high in fruits, grains, and vegetables, moderate in lean meats and low-fat dairy products and low in fat and sugar. Another way to describe this diet is that it is composed of whole, natural foods that are not processed or over-packaged. It's the way most people ate 100 years ago when high blood pressure was almost unheard of.

If the DASH diet goes astray anywhere it's in sharing same weakness as most other diets. It starts with a sensible concept and then gets hung up in prescribing portion sizes and daily servings. These are arbitrary with no connection to seasonal or geographical variations. A healthy diet should be in tune with nature by taking advantage of local foods when they are in season.

Sound health, and this includes a normal blood pressure, is promoted by being in tune with nature. In terms of nutrition, this means eating a varied diet of whole, natural foods, as far as possible grown locally and in season. It does not mean cherry-picking alleged super-foods nor avoiding "bad" foods or swapping them for fake substitutes! So do try this new diet and see if it helps to reduce high blood pressure yourself today.