Next time finding heart healthy food for your family makes you go into a tizzy, try to relax and come to terms with the fact that there is nothing much you can do about that. Recent studies show that very few of these food products actually show strong evidence of lowering heart disease risk.

After evaluating more than 50 years of research on diet and heart disease, scientists have found that diets rich in vegetables, nuts, and those that follow a Mediterranean pattern with lots of fruits, vegetables, and fish have "strong evidence" of lowering the risk of heart disease. On the other hand starchy carbs like white bread and the trans fats in many cookies and French fries have been found to be harmful for the heart.

There are certain food products like meat, eggs and milk and many others that still have the scientists in a fix about their exact effect on the heart.

Monday's Archives of Internal Medicine gives a complicated explanation of how the researchers rated 189 prior studies on the topic.  

"I do research. I also buy groceries for my family every week," said study co-author Dr. Sonia Anand of McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who hopes the findings "decrease the confusion around what we should eat and what we shouldn't eat."