'I nearly died of a ‘widow-maker’ heart attack. I had to change my approach to food as a chef’
Chef Sat Bains always knew the importance of staying fit and eating healthy, especially considering the health issues that people of his ethnicity are prone to. As a Punjabi from an Indian background, and as a man in his 50s, Bains knew he had all the markers for high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, and diabetes.
So staying on top of his health was always a priority. Bains, whose restaurant in Nottingham boasts two Michelin stars, tells Yahoo UK he has been training since he was 15 years old, from lifting weights to practising martial arts.
So it came as a complete surprise when he suffered from a massive ‘widow-maker’ heart attack in 2021 that nearly killed him. Bains said he first felt a pain in his chest while working out with a personal trainer, but dismissed it as muscular strain.
However, after the pain spread to his jaw and eye socket and feeling out of breath during a walk in the park with his wife Amanda, Bains realised something was wrong - they rang 111. On his fitness tracking device, his heart rate appeared to be "all over the place".
An angiogram revealed he had a major blood clot in his left artery. "There was a narrowing of the artery, which had probably been happening for a while, and the blood being forced through created a rupture and eventually, the blood clot," Bains explains. "I was very, very close to death from that heart attack, and I didn’t even know it."
A widow-maker heart attack is known as such because it can have severe consequences. It is caused by a complete block of the left anterior descending (LAD) artery, which transports a large amount of blood into the heart. When blocked, the heart can run out of oxygen quickly and stop beating.
Bains was put on medication and then later underwent a triple heart bypass. He ended up in hospital for nearly two weeks, and took about six months to recover. "I was very out of breath and very weak for months, dizzy all the time. I couldn’t even walk 10 metres."
He credits his initial fitness levels for helping him recover from the attack. However, Bains has also come to terms with the fact he now has to manage his health in different ways to avoid another heart attack.
He started learning about nutrition from his friend and nutrition scientist Dr Neil Williams to discover what foods could help him manage his cholesterol levels and heart health. Before suffering the attack, Bains was following a keto diet that was high in fat and low in carbohydrates.
"I was eating a lot of fat, so that probably didn’t help," he reflects. "Since then, I’ve been learning and understanding Neil’s philosophy of eating a wide range of biodiverse vegetables, fruits, nuts, meat, and fish."
Bains started creating recipes for himself with his newfound learnings, which is how he came to launch his and Neil’s collaborative cookbook, Eat to Your Heart’s Content.
"I’m not a health expert by any means, but I can talk about my journey and tell you the ingredients that I’ve chosen, with Neil explaining all the benefits that come with them," he says of the cookbook.
"And, as a chef, I can tell you how to make them delicious. I think that’s the biggest fear for most people at home and it’s why they’re not cooking, everything’s pre-processed nowadays, which is where a lot of our problems are coming from."
The chef's observations about people finding it challenging to give up the foods they love for a heart-healthy diet because they are concerned about sacrificing flavour has been echoed by Jeremy Clarkson, who recently suffered from heart issues caused by blocked arteries.
In a recent article in The Sun, the Top Gear star said he needed to "cut out, completely, everything I like eating" in order to bring his cholesterol levels down - this included "bacon, sausages, beef, lamb, pork, butter, chops, proper milk, Cadbury's fruit and nut bars, and the interesting bit in an egg".
But it doesn't have to be that way, Bains insists. His recipes include dishes like chicken meatballs and butter beans and lemon, and lamb chops with harissa - meals that are packed with flavour and vitality.
Bains prioritised accessible ingredients, saying: "There’s nothing in there that will make people think, ‘Ah, he’s gone all Michelin star’" - so anyone can buy them from their supermarket or local butchers and fishmongers.
"My main advice is to always go for whole foods," he adds. "Go for really good dairy and oils, ingredients you cook from scratch. Try and cut out as many processed foods as you can, keep away from anything that has labels like ‘diet’, ‘light’, ‘sugar-free’, ‘fat-free’ - so many of those products are ultra-processed.
"We need to go back to basics with nutrition. That’s the whole journey of this book, and it’s an ongoing process."
Sat Bains and Dr Neil Williams' cookbook Eat to Your Heart's content is available to order on Amazon.
Read more about heart health:
How to have a heart-healthy diet without sacrificing flavour (Yahoo Life UK, 5-min read)
Heart disease warning as early deaths at highest rate in more than a decade (Sky News, 3-min read)
Heart Disease Symptoms In Women Can Be Different – Here’s What To Look For (HuffPost, 2-min read)
