One of my co-workers believes her heart to be unhealthy, and so has been consuming large amounts of raw garlic and onions. People complained to management because the woman exuded strong garlic odor, up to three feet away. Management asked her to decrease her use of raw garlic.

I used to know an elderly woman who was advised by a homeopathic doctor to consume several cloves of poached garlic per day. I cannot remember whether she simmered her garlic for seven, or nine, minutes. I never noticed a garlic odor when I visited with her.

Consuming nuts every day is another way. Pistachios can increase HDL to a lesser extent than curcumin.

I improved both my blood pressure and cholesterol by cooking with sesame oil.

You might want to check out Shrubmed - it has a page that cross-references the research on herbs and natural therapies with HDL. (http://www.shrubmed.com/HDL.html or link at bottom of post). Shrubmed is basically a index to the research on herbs, and doesn't mean that all of the herbs listed are good for HDL. It just means that these herbs occur in the same abstract as HDL. But it is good for a starting point of doing research.