It is possible that a couple of beers a night would raise your blood pressure, but probably only by a couple of points. The usual recommendation is that heavier men should drink no more than two beers (or glasses of wine or ounces of 100 proof spirits) a day and women and lighter weight men no more than one a day. And one cannot save up for a binge on weekends, either! Here is a link to one smaller study regarding that:
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3030243
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I am looking into buying some frozen Buffalo patties (low fat alternative to beef) and eating that or chicken cutlets with baked potato and a veg. No salt of course.
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This sounds better than most take-out food, but really isn't the best for blood pressure control, either. Add a large salad (not just iceberg lettuce, but mainly things like broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, zucchini, tomatoes, carrots, lettuce, lightly steamed asparagus, onions, garbanzo beans, green peppers, etc.) Also add a glass of skim milk or a cup of plain yogurt into which you have cut some fresh fruit. If you really feel you need the yogurt a bit sweeter, you can add just a little bit of sugar to it and still keep the sugar quantity far lower than you would if you buy the fruited yogurt.
The point is a good diet for blood pressure needs adequate potassium and calcium. About eight servings a day of vegetables and fruits and three servings a day of non-fat or low-fat dairy would provide that. If you choose not to have dairy, you need to deliberately choose vegetables which provide calcium but which don't have much oxalic acid (which blocks absorption of calcium). Broccoli is one good choice for this. Many leafy green vegetables, like spinach, have a lot of calcium, so it looks great when you look at a chart, but they have so much oxalic acid that you can't count on getting any good from that calcium.
Of course, if you prefer, you could get your calcium in the form of a supplement, but if you do so, make sure you also take magnesium and vitamin D at the same time or take it with a meal that has plenty of magnesium and D. These additional nutrients are required to properly absorb the calcium. My 73-year-old sister is a good example of the importance of that. She now has a very severe Dowager's hump and scoliosis and is in great pain as a result. Her comment to me recently was, "And to think I was taking a calcium supplement all those years! If I'd known I had to take magnesium with it, I probably wouldn't be in this shape." She had avoided dairy products because she is lactose intolerant. I, on the other hand, have no symptoms at all of osteoporosis at age 64. Though I, too, am lactose intolerant, I've continued to consume dairy products and just take a generic Lact-Aid with it.
