[martinau (OP)]

I just got back from the doctor and he has put me on a low cholesterol diet [nofollow].  What the heck am I going to eat when I go to Mexico? Where do I start with this?

[CliffordK]

One general rule is that anything that walked generally has cholesterol.
Anything that didn't walk generally doesn't have cholesterol.

Perhaps your Mexican trip will be enhanced with Beano

[martinau (OP)]

LOL You are right.. but I need a bit more information.This does not seam dietary to me at all!

Also my dog and I don't have same cholesterol level

[CliffordK]

Your body can both utilize dietary cholesterol, as well as making its own, so changing the cholesterol levels is difficult.  However, I think there are enough cohort studies to indicate that diet does play a role, especially lifelong habits.

Plants and vegetables don't make cholesterol (doesn't walk as mentioned above).
Pretty much all animals, or animal products will have at least some cholesterol (walks).  Meat, eggs, milk, cheese, butter, lard, etc.

I believe it is worse in animal fats (which could be considered empty calories anyway) than muscle, so always choose lean cuts.

Reduce all meats.  Some lean meat may be ok, but I'd reduce the quantities from your diet.
Avoid fatty meats.
Less cheese.
etc.

I suppose there is some cholesterol in vegetable oils, but there is about 1000 times as much in the animal oils.  Some vegetable oil is ok, but I would probably avoid very oily meals.

EXERCISE is also very good.  Your doctor should have given you both an HDL and an LDL rating.  the HDL is considered "protective", and is most related to exercise.

Anyway, I haven't been to Mexico, so I can only judge by the "Mexican" food I've seen in the USA. 
Tortillas, even those cooked in vegetable oil shouldn't affect the cholesterol significantly.
Often one gets a choice between meat and bean fillings.  The bean fillings will be lower in cholesterol.

Are you also restricting salt?  It can be difficult to restrict salt when eating restaurant food.

[chris]

The most powerful determinant of circulating cholesterol is actually dietary fat consumption. Fat in foods is absorbed through the secretion of bile, which contains cholesterol. When this is reabsorbed, as chylomicrons, it circulates systemically, contributing to elevated serum LDL. Cutting out cholesterol itself from the diet actually does very little because cells need cholesterol in their membranes and have cholesterol detectors called "steroid response elements". These activate cholesterol-synthesising genes (HMG CoA reductases) if the cell cholesterol levels fall too low.

[bizerl]

I watched a recent show we have in Australia called Catalyst which contemplated the fact that data linking cholesterol with heart disease could be quite unreliable.

I would love to know what the good Dr. Chris thinks about this, and are there any recent peer-reviewed studies looking into the effects of cholesterol on the heart?

[cheryl j]

There was something in news last spring challenging traditional thinking about cholesterol, claiming that gut bacteria manufactured a substance that caused plaques, and these gut bacteria were more prevalent on a meat and animal fat diet. I haven't heard anything about it since. Maybe their findings couldn't be reproduced.